Bionic Mannequins are Keeping an Eye on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales

The EYE SEE mannequin from Almax S.p.A. (Italy) in collaboration with Kee Square makes it possible to observe who is attracted by store windows and visual displays using facial recognition software. The software, powered by IBM, uses a camera embedded in one eye that feeds data into facial-recognition software like that used by police. It can track age range, gender, race, number of people and dwell time.

Results
The €4,000 ($5,072) device has spurred shops to adjust window displays, store layouts and promotions to keep consumers walking in the door and spending.

According to Bloomberg, Benneton US are among five retailers currently trialling the mannequin camera.

A step too far?
Like all attempts to monitor shopper behaviour, the innovation raises privacy issues for both staff and shoppers. Staff issues could be managed via loading of all personnel pics into the software and eliminating them from the tracking, hopefully….

However, given that privacy tends to be less of an issue when consumer needs are being met via tailored offerings, like with Amazon’s relevant emails, providing the store can demonstrate reactive use of the insight, then size and quality of basket will deliver the ultimate endorsement.