Tracking Shoppers
[From Shops track customers via mobile phone - Times Online ]
An article on Path Intelligence, which offers the ability to track shoppers through malls. They do this by measuring signals from a shopper’s cell phone with several monitoring units. This technology is installed in several malls in the UK. The benefits are:
A shopping mall could, for example, find out that 10,000 people were still in the store at 6pm, helping to make a case for longer opening hours, or that a majority of customers who visited Gap also went to Next, which could useful for marketing purposes. In the case of Gunwharf Quays, managers were surprised to discover that an unusually high percentage of visitors were German – the receivers can tell in which country each phone is registered – which led to the management translating the instructions in the car park.
The technology relies on the IMEI code for a cell phone. IMEI is a unique number given to each cell phone. Supposedly, only the phone network can match a handset IMEI to the personal details of the customer. (I don’t know how this approach compares to cell phones used for monitoring traffic congestion.)
This is another example of a smart system used for marketing purposes.
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