Why Security Cameras Play an Essential Role in Protecting Your Business

While security cameras are an important part of protecting your business, they offer more than merely the ability to provide safety and security to your establishment. Many retail stores already have these systems in place, so why not use a combination of existing software and hardware to make your business more profitable?

Where Customers Linger

Deciding on where to place a security camera in your store can ultimately boil down to watching where unscrupulous customers linger and look around with concern while eyeing different products.

Knowing where some customers spend their time between getting items helps you see what products are effective at moving and what might need incentives to get rid of and whether that is a worthwhile investment in money and floor space.

Conversely, if a product moves quickly, it may be advantageous to set up additional kiosks to try to sell more. Knowing where people stand or wait is also important with regard to keeping store traffic flowing, which leads to the next point.

Traffic Flow

Keeping customers moving through the store is an important way to keep your business running smoothly. While the checkout line is an area to keep a consistent flow of traffic, other areas of the store may benefit from customers moving a bit slower.

While having end caps and displays in the middle of some aisles might help to move some items, it could also cause traffic jams that make your customers more aggravated or slow others areas of the store. These can also be used as non-obvious barriers to help ferry customers toward part of the stores where they might be more willing to pick up something on a whim.

Statistics

With modern facial analysis and statistical software, it’s possible to gain insight into the demographics of your customers. When combined withsecurity camera systems already in place within many stores, this software is able to provide general demographic information, like gender, and a rough estimate on age in an anonymous fashion.

Knowing how many customers are in the store at any given time also allows management to more effectively schedule workers. If, on average, there is a lull at a certain time and a rush at another, you may be able to schedule extra help to deal with the influx of customers.

When demographic information is combined with inventory tracking, this becomes a powerful tool to start to move items during specific times of the day. A store located near a school might see an influx of younger customers around 3 p.m. As such, certain snack food can be moved toward the entrance of the store to entice these buyers.

Ease of Integration

Getting these benefits doesn’t require much additional work in terms of the already existing hardware that is most likely installed within the store as a general security measure.

Statistical solutions can be installed and viewed from your store’s main security office, because there isn’t a need to get a new camera. Rather, it’s the software analysis of the video feed that keeps information flowing in. Because these systems are software-based, analysis can be achieved remotely.

Photo Credit: Social Monsters with permission to use.