The recessive economic scenario shows no signs of improvement. The employment is retracted, a large number of companies must request their reorganization (at a rate of one every three days) and sales at the stores are still in negative territory, in real terms. In the midst of this bleak panorama, ecommerce is the only one that shows signs of good health.
It was behind the fear of "putting a card" on the Internet and today 9 out of ten people have already bought at least once online. This made online billing grow almost 50% in the last twelve months.
In supermarket shelves, the situation is markedly opposite: 2018 closed in red (-3%) and in the beginning of 2019, far from improving, things worsened: 10.5% year-on-year decline in January, according to INDEC .
Why is this scenario so "bipolar", showing a booming sales channel and another fully feeling the throes of recession? Beyond the fact that the money at stake is very different, it reflects how more people are getting used to buying in that way that allows them to gain in speed and comfort.
On the other side of the counter, they see this process with good eyes. On the one hand, Internet sales mean lower personnel costs, maintenance, among other concepts.
On the other hand (as or more important than the previous), it allows them to get to know each client closely: their consumption patterns, profiles, preferences, habits, sex and much more thanks to technological tools that track their visits to other websites. , Google searches, use of social networks and more.
If they are made of large amount of data when the purchase is online, why not aim to obtain the same if the purchase is in physical stores?
This is precisely the process that has already started. That is, supermarkets and large stores that take advantage of the latest innovations to transform these spaces into a kind of "Big Brother", with a large number of cameras arranged in strategic places to make all kinds of information.
Specifically, who (of the couple) takes the product of the gondola, what kind of data you are looking for, if you add it to the changuito or finally give up, the time it takes to make that decision, the way in which the position of the item influences (height of the eyes), among many other issues. Everything, of course, without the client noticing.
At the local level, it takes as a reference what is happening in the first world, where the most important step has just been given by Walgreens, a chain of pharmacies in the United States, which has installed cameras with iris detection in its pantries.
From this, you can delineate the profiles of each of your customers, from the products you watch or purchase. The company aims to generate a base of demographic information of its users considering a cataract of key data.
In Argentina, the main chains are ready to implement this type of technology although, given the sensitivity of the topic, they avoid commenting.
New market laws
Although Walgreens appears as a pioneer in this type of monitoring, the real drivers have been Amazon, Carrefour and Walmart.
The company commanded by Jeff Bezos recognized the potential to generate stores without personnel: in Amazon Go you only need an account linked to a credit card to cross the pinwheel and enter the premises of the future.
There, the cameras and sensors do the fine work: they capture everything that consumers look at, what they take, what is missing and what the store needs. At the end of the purchase process, you do not have to queue but go directly through the door. They instantly receive the account and the detail of what they spent on the cell phone to be validated. All without an error.
In Argentina, supermarkets such as Walmart or Carrefour have already started to follow the path that will take them to follow the steps of each client. That is, how they behave in front of the gondolas and then transform that data into key information to delineate business strategies.
"There is a remarkable transformation in the industry, a new structure is established, the business model of information management is the one that makes it possible to provide more services both to the consumer and to the companies," Eduardo Álvaro, the commercial director, told iProUP. the southern cone of Signify.
Signify is the new name of Philips Lighting. Based on its core business, it detected the "veta 4.0" and began to develop products for the retail market.
Leveraged by its connected LED lighting, it created the system called "Indoor Positioning" that is revolutionizing the way of collecting data in stores.
Strictly speaking, the lighting system interacts with and receives information from smartphones that have a dedicated application installed. In this way, the precise location of the people in the stores is collected.
This modality is already used in the region (for example in Chile and in Peru), it already has a strong development in the Carrefour of Europe and will soon be implemented in Argentina.
In addition, it has several benefits for the consumer: from making a dynamic shopping list, indicating where you must travel to find the products you need to provide the facility to find "cross-bids."
This means, for example, that if you buy a type of pasta (noodles), the system recommends what sauce is on offer, in addition to a wine that marries with the dish. Of course, the most attractive part is the company, with the data of its customers.
"It is collected in real time what a person sees or needs, based on that, the company can draw profiles of each one to know about their particularities, reactions and buying interests", explains Álvaro.
"In addition, we can make heat maps based on the most viewed products, know the movements of visitors and, with those records, change the distribution of products in the store," he adds.
In general terms, these solutions are linked to the concept of deep learning. That is, machines can understand how the human brain works and predict their reactions based on a series of algorithms.
Question of data
The experience of "smart" supermarkets is just one part of how the industry is changing and the importance that data intelligence is gaining.
The challenge is to create effective methods to collect "info" and improve the future experience. In turn, another of the challenges is to be able to visualize these data obtained in an intelligent way for decision making.
"For many, reorganizing the design of their stores and installing additional equipment is not a realistic option, because there is no space available or because they have budget limitations," assures iProUP Roger De La Hoz, artificial intelligence specialist at Hikvision, a specialized firm. in smart video solutions.
In these circumstances, the company proposes to combine artificial intelligence and deep learning in a comprehensive solution that offers valuable data on operating conditions in real time, allowing companies to improve customer service and increase their competitive advantage.
Among the functions of this platform, the following stand out:
- People counting: monitoring of the flow and number of clients. The objective is to organize the staff, obtain sales data and make queries for the design of strategies that optimize profitability.
- Recognition of VIP users: administrators can adapt their services to those they consider most relevant.
- Heat maps: determine the popularity of products in the gondola. In this way, by organizing this data by layers of time, managers can see how to improve the placement of items on their surface, as well as the general design of their premises.
- Detection of rows: monitor the situation of the queues in real time, since the waiting time has a very negative effect on the client. The cameras are designed to monitor them in real time and activate an alarm to open a new box in case of congestion.
- Point of Sale (POS) integration: the transaction data is loaded and encoded with the video sequence. This facilitates the identification of the operations that must be reviewed due to the complaints.
"Every day you get a lot more information about the video systems, with the deep learning algorithms, everything becomes more precise: recognizing a face, identifying a vehicle brand or its color, although it is in real time, the information remains stored for further analysis, "says De La Hoz.
And he adds: "The support in the algorithms of artificial intelligence supposes an improvement of performance in devices and intelligent solutions".
This information crossed with the sales records allows to know what the hours are and if these moments have generated volumes of purchases, review areas where it may be necessary to locate more surveillance personnel and know how many people entered or left through a specific door.
The company already has some regional solutions installed in "Mifarma" in Peru, a pharmacy chain of more than a thousand branches.
"The trend is the convergence of different solutions in integral platforms that allow you to obtain value to the end user, not only avoiding accidents but also supporting the improvement of the productivity of your operations", explains the specialist.
Legal controversy
Beyond these innovations are focused on improving the shopping experience, the truth is that it has implications for the privacy of people.
"The owner of the business is fully entitled to install the cameras he wants because it is a private space, but what he does with the results of those filming is up to the people filmed, because the image is a very personal right protected by the law of Protection of Personal Data ", remarks Beatriz Busaniche, of the Vía Libre Foundation.
According to the expert, customers should have the possibility to request that their data be deleted or rectified in the database.
For Guillermo Navarro, expert lawyer in computer law, these systems will be supported in some application in which the user, through a digital signature, approves the terms and conditions of the store to allow their behavior to be analyzed by algorithms.
"According to your credit index or previous purchases, the merchant will send you a purchase alert for a product, which is the same as a cookie on an ecommerce platform," he adds.
In addition, the specialists consulted by iProUP stress that supermarkets must register as responsible in the Public Information Access Agency and install a poster in a visible place in the store where they explain the operation.
"They should indicate what security measures are implemented and if the information is shared and with whom," says Daniel Monastersky, a lawyer specializing in computer law.
According to the lawyer, each supermarket must have a security document stating who has access to the information, how long they keep it, where they store it and if they collect sensitive data, among other items.
Information has become the most valuable asset of organizations today, so retail chains plan to follow users in the Big Brother style to know everything that allows them to sell more. It will be the last resort of supermarkets to avoid being "nominated" in the era of the digital economy.
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