A retail business model such as brick and mortar is experiencing a wave of disruption on account of the growing e-commerce industry and stiff competition in the overall retail industry. The ability to analyze customer behavior is a vital factor contributing to the e-commerce sector’s growing popularity. Thus, conventional retailers are rapidly adopting technological advancements such as in-store analytics to attract customers and gain an edge over their e-commerce competitors. In-store analytics solutions are being adopted predominantly due to changing consumer demand and need for actionable insights to enhance customer experience by retailers. However, there are several concerns associated with in-store analytics such as compatibility with existing infrastructure and high cost of deployment.

Significant changes in customer demand over time need a deeper understanding of evolving customer preferences, resulting in demand for solutions to gather effective analytical insights and subsequently, devise appropriate strategies for improved business processes. The demand for in-store analytics is predominantly driven by its capability to produce data-driven solutions by analyzing changing customer preferences in real-time. Several organizations are significantly investing in developing in-store analytics and are leveraging several technologies to uniquely position their competitive advantage. In-store analytics technology is being used in the retail sector is expected to have a significant contribution in the coming years.

Few of the key happenings are detailed below:

• July 2019, Kroger’s data analytics firm has launched Stratum which is a tool capable of providing insights about product sales performance to brand partners
• July 2019, TRAX, which is a startup providing computer vision and in-store analytics for the retail industry has done US$100 million investment to expand its footprint in China as well as on a global level
• July 2019, Kairos (a B2B facial recognition company) has introduced its product Kairos Camera that provides data visualization and analytics solutions for offline retailers. These cameras have integrated facial recognition technology that collects customer information such as gender, emotion, and new customer visits

Conclusively, with the growing adoption of technologies, in-store analytics will become more adaptive supported by advancing hardware and software components. Considering significant demand in retail, in-store analytics will certainly contribute significantly towards the retail industry across the globe. In-store analytics is expected to play an important role in enhancing user engagement and loyalty.