Connecting the dots (and the data) for a better retail environment

One of the critical themes that came up repeatedly from customer and partner conversations at #NRF2020 is how to connect multiple points of data across a customer journey. Although the shift to Ecommerce has grown immensely, we know that the brick-and-mortar store remains an important engagement point for retailers. So, seeing patterns in data and understanding the bigger picture of an in-store engagement can be incredibly powerful.

Leveraging a physical store as a platform enables retailers to gather intelligence around dwell time, conversion rates, mobile engagement, customer demographics and even customer sentiment. Gaining these valuable insights is the number one opportunity for a retailer to improve their bottom line.

At Cisco’s booth at NRF this week, we brought our ecosystem partner VAPP.IO and the Meraki platform together to deliver a specific use case that integrates video and WiFi location analytics. In the chart below you can see we are tracking the number of folks passing through our booth at different times of the day and week. The analytics engine can pick up specific customer insights such as age and gender—even emotional states like calm, surprised, happy, sad or angry, and the relationship of that data to conversion rates. Today, retailers can even leverage this type of data platform to see how much time a person spends looking at a product on a shelf and exactly what their engagement levels are before, during, and after their shopping experience.

Figure – Video Dashboard Analytics–people, demographics & emotions

How cool is it that we are truly in the business of creating a deeper digital experience in a store, mall, convention centre or airport. As more and more retailers find new ways to monetize their physical spaces with digital engagement points, they can synthesize different sources of data and truly change the game for their business. This particular solution is live and making difference for our customers in the real world, specifically in one of the top airports of the world. Knowing how to serve customers better starts with the right solutions to understand what their needs are, and generating that insight may be as simple as walking through a bookstore, restaurant,  lounge in an airport, or your favorite retail store.

To see more information about what was shown in each section of the Cisco booth at NRF 2020, you can visit our digital compendium.