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Meraki Cameras in Retail

Written by IPTel Solutions | 30 May 2024 1:09:37 AM

The world is awash with Artificial Intelligence applications these days - and applications that can connect with your Meraki cameras are no different. Here's a blog with some ideas on how to extend the value of your Meraki camera install in the retail environment.

Meraki Camera Fun Facts

Let's kick off this blog with some statistics as these really tell their own story. The Meraki MV cameras have a great set of savings and ROI figures:

  • 43% ROI of Meraki Cameras - payback period of 10 months
  • 75% savings on maintenance costs
  • 60% reduction of video storage costs
  • 98% time savings in access and sharing footage
  • 30% reduced energy costs

Hopefully the above grabs the attention! Let's take a look at some of the challenges and use cases for the cameras, in the section below.

 

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Challenges Retailers Face

Retailers use cameras extensively of course - but what are the challenges retailers face? If we can define these, then we can take a look at how we can resolve these.

Typical challenges that retailers face that the Meraki MV cameras can help with are:

  • Complexity: Reduction of complexity in store operations
  • Data: Using data to improve the customer experience
  • Cost Reduction: Make operations more sustainable
  • Automation: Improve store operations and business operations
  • Safety: Enhance safety and security in retail operations
  • Efficiency: Monitor, manage and maintain productivity

Now we've defined the key challenges - let's take a look at the AI options we could use to solve some of these challenges.

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Employee and Guest Safety

Cameras provide the inherent safety, but the use of AI means that behaviours can be automatically tracked.

Security extends from the retail store of course through the parking lot and any perimeter to the store operations. With AI though, the AI application can determine what it considers to be dangerous behaviour and provide automated alerts.

A value add in this space could be use of the Meraki MT sensors, which can trigger based on doors being left open, which can trigger a security issue.

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Loss Prevention

Loss prevention is a big topic in retail. Theft really hurts retailers, so any technology that can be used to reduce this has to be a good thing. Monitoring the environment for theft and also perishable waste helps retailers reduce their costs.

Integration of cameras and AI can help with identification of fraudulent transactions and scan avoidance at point of sale. AI is a very handy addition to enable automated behaviour detection and alerting.

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Store Experience

There's a range of ways to improve the customer experience in retail, using the Meraki MV cameras and AI:

  • Advertising: In-store advertising
  • Footfall: Analytics to improve customer flow and merchandise location
  • Service: Measure and improve customer service timelines
  • Planogram Compliance: Help enforce price, promotions and product availability
  • HVAC: Automating temperature / humidity / air quality systems

The bottom line is to use AI to help provide some automatic reporting that helps improve the customer experience, remove points of pain and optimise store layout and customer flow. 

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Meraki Cameras in Retail: Summary

The customer in-store experience is king in bringing customers into the physical store and retaining customer loyalty. AI can help provide insights to reduce energy usage, improve loss prevention, or reduce waste.

Retailers need all the help they can get in improving efficiency and customer experience, so the use of AI with Meraki MV cameras is an interesting addition.

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