In the Customer’s Shoes
Brown Shoe Co. uses video analytics to step into customer analytics
- By Megan Weadock
- Jun 01, 2013
As IP technology and advanced video surveillance
systems become increasingly popular,
video analytics have officially entered the
mainstream. Now, companies that range
from large global enterprises to small, neighborhood
stores are seeing the inherent value
of video analytics in the retail world.
But some companies are taking it a
step further, envisioning ways to harness
invaluable marketing data from video surveillance
footage—at once protecting and
promoting their company with the same
surveillance system.
Seeing the Potential
Jon Grander, vice president of asset and revenue
management for Brown Shoe Co., sees
this type of potential for his company, which
operates more than 1,300 Famous Footwear
and Naturalizer stores in the United States
and Canada while also wholesaling to retailers
as diverse as Nordstrom and Walmart.
“Today, a lot of companies use analytics
for loss prevention and incident review,”
Grander said. “But when you focus that technology
on creating a better customer experience,
you can come up with some really
powerful solutions.”
That’s why Brown Shoe Co. has partnered
with Prism Skylabs, a San Francisco-based
company whose system uniquely combines
next-generation video surveillance with detailed
customer analysis. Its cloud-based
software leverages existing camera networks
to allow business owners a more holistic
view and understanding of their companies,
creating new revenue streams and finding
unique ways to engage with consumers.
The resulting data enables store employees
to understand how long customers
have lingered in their stores, what path
they’ve taken and what merchandise they
touched. And, by creating visualizations or
heat maps of aggregate data, Prism is able
to present this data so that it can be easily
understood by any employee and protect
customer privacy.
“In a way, this type of information has
been available to us for years, through marketing
companies that sit outside the store
and simply observe: counting customers,
recording linger time and watching where
customers are drawn,” Grander said. “Prism
lets us do this in real-time, over an extended
period of time—not just a given day or weekend.
The system lets us understand the preferences
of thousands of customers across
different platforms and gather information to
improve our store designs, promotions and
what our sales associates are doing.”
Mapping Customer Activity
Brown Shoe is using the software at a
number of sites around North America.
To ensure that the technology would be
a good fit for its business, the company
chose to focus the deployment on its redesigned
mall concept stores, whose long
aisleways and many displays make them
the ideal environment.
“We want to consistently deliver the best
possible experience for our customers,”
Grander said. “Prism is useful in understanding
the efficacy of the design, marketing,
merchandising and layouts of our stores.”
The software company is providing Brown
Shoe the ability to remotely access live data
in each of its mall stores. The software condenses
each customer interaction and movement
into simple and usable images and
reports, giving Grander and his team instant
insight into a particular time of day or year.
This insight was particularly useful during the
back-to-school rush.
“By mapping that time frame, we can
find out if shopping behavior is different
before or after this period, whether we’re
targeting products to where the consumer
is going in the store and where we can best
highlight products,” Grander said. “We believe
we can enhance selling by stationing a
shoe in a location where it will get the most
looks and the most touches based on our
prior experience.
“Anyone can get video, review it and connect
the dots,” he said. “But that takes a lot
of time. And there’s human error. With Prism,
you have a system that connects the dots
for you by telling a story about which shoes
are being touched more frequently. That can
equate to a sale. If there are a lot of touches
on a shoe and not a lot of sales, it could either
mean there is a fit problem or we didn’t have
a customer’s size.”
Imagining the Future
Prism will also provide some additional advantages
for Brown Shoe’s customers.
“It’s all about the experience,” Grander
said. “Customers have a positive experience
when we see a store open early because
someone is waiting outside. With
this software, we’re able to recognize exemplary
performance of our associates so
they can be recognized. A picture is worth a
thousand words.”
The concept stores are still too new to
determine how the system might aid in any
redesign.
“We’re still learning more about how to
best leverage all that Prism has to offer, but
we believe this tool has the ability to revolutionize
how we do business,” Grander said.
He imagines the company will get the
most value out of the software by using it
in their marketing and merchandising operations
as a way to help differentiate their
stores. However, they may eventually use its
capabilities to optimize labor management
and allocate hours more effectively.
“The sky’s the limit,” he said. “The system
is very flexible and is focused on trying
to build something that helps us come to
meaningful conclusions.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2013 issue of Security Today.