For some time, online retailers have been able to collect data about their customers and use it to enhance their sales and marketing efforts.
Now traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers are catching up.
Customers’ consent is required, but new technologies allow businesses of all stripes to know more than ever about how, when and where their customers shop.
A technology called near-field communication allows equipped advertising displays to pick up signals from any smartphones within 100 feet of the display.
Retailers could use that technology to see how many people stop in front of the display, for how long, and during which advertisements.
“You don’t need to know exactly who personally they are when they’re walking by,” says Douglas Lusted, co-founder of near-field communications company WestonExpressions.
Local stores haven’t gone quite that far yet, but 20 stores in Waterloo do use signs that, when tapped, can let retailers know if you’re a returning customer.
The University of Waterloo bookstore is one of them, offering customers who tap the screen and fill out a survey the chance to win a prize.
About 200 customers do so every month – far more than ever filled out the store’s paper surveys.
“It’s important for us to know (if we’re) communicating effectively with them, (if they’re) reading our displays” says May Yen, the store’s director of retail services.
While the technology isn’t widespread at this point, Lusted says it may be only a matter of time before longtime retailers decide they need a new edge in their battle with online vendors.
“The two industries are clashing, and soon you’re really going to see these retailers enhance their stores with all types of digital technology,” he says.
Right now, Yen says, the bookstore only collects students’ email addresses, and not any other personal information – not like last summer, when U.S. department store chain Nordstrom received heavy criticism for tracking its customers via their phones.
