Biometric technologies in offline retail: analytics, loyalty, security, bioquiring

Last Thursday, March 25th, will be remembered for the online event dedicated to biometric technologies for the retail business segment
Retail is an industry that is now actively introducing innovations to collect analytics, targeted interaction with customers, increase their loyalty and attract new visitors, and combat with shoplifters. But high competition forces us to look for new technological and quickly integrated solutions. RecFaces company acted as the general partner of the online conference “Biometric Technologies in Offline Retail: Analytics, Loyalty, Security, Bioquiring”. In his report, Sergey Levin, founder of RecFaces, shared the numbers on the state of online and offline retail in the post-covid era, and also told how facial biometrics can help in the battle against shoplifters.
“There will be offline retail, although we all see that the retail market in dynamics has turned towards online platforms. Nevertheless, traditional store formats are optimizing their work in order to close the ‘gaps’ after the pandemic crisis. As a result, there is a rethinking of approaches to the safety of goods and the prevention of theft and plunderage. The main and priority prevention tool can be facial biometrics, which is built into the current video surveillance system. Biometrics will allow creating a centralized database of intruders in the case of a branch geographically distributed retail network, automating the process of notifying the store's security service, as well as bringing the speed of response to incidents with theft to a significantly new level. At the same time, biometrics can work as an addition to the existing video surveillance system, enriching it with the functionality of face recognition”, — said Sergey Levin in his report.
In addition to thefts and plunderage, Sergey touched upon the second important topic for retail — the awareness of the retail company about its customers.
“If you see, it doesn’t mean that you know” — is one of the quotes that Sergei used in his presentation. And that is for good reason. Customer data does not always add up to a single picture from which reliable conclusions can be drawn. Unfortunately, CRM systems and loyalty programs allow collecting information about the store's exhibitors only partially. While facial biometrics allows you to analyze the gender composition of customers, age group, count the number of unique visitors, the number of customer returns and refusals.
“Biometrics is a competitive advantage for retail companies. Using the recognition system, you can significantly increase the reach of visitors, while receiving reliable data about each person who comes to the store, you can study the dynamics of changes in indicators for loyal customers, new guests and other configured groups of people, and also, what is important, biometrics does not require significant costs for additional infrastructure”, — notes Tamara Morozova, CEO of RecFaces.
For the retail segment, RecFaces Company offers its Id-Target product, which covers the solution of all of the tasks above, and also helps to target advertising offers to customers at points of sale, increase the level of service and customer loyalty, always maintain an up-to-date database of customer activity, as well as increase the total level of safety in stores. Along with RecFaces, the online conference was attended by both developers and suppliers of biometric solutions — VisionLabs, ASTROHN Technology Ltd, as well as major players in the retail business. RecFaces predicts further growth in the number of highly efficient solutions, biometric technologies in the retail segment in particular. For convenience and quick launch of pilot projects, RecFaces invites everyone to free training courses on both the Id-Target solution and other products from the biometric line. You can view the current course schedule here: https://recfaces.com/training. And you can leave a request for a pilot project by writing to us at sales@recfaces.com