The Top IP Video Trends (Or Challenges) Of The 2015 Holiday Season

By Hedgie Bartol, Business Development Manager, Retail, for Axis Communications

During the holiday shopping season, many retailers took  time to evaluate their surveillance systems to figure out how they can become more efficient and more secure: Essentially, do more with less, and leverage the intelligent capability afforded through technology today.  Retailers are exploring IP-based video systems and their accompanying technologies to protect their business. Now, the question is, what trends within the IP-based video space will we see this holiday season?

Here are the top five technology trends that retailers experienced during the 2015 holiday season.

1. Cybersecurity. Retailers need to have a strong cybersecurity strategy in place to ensure that critical data doesn’t get into the wrong hands. Many people don’t realize that cybercriminals can gain access to a network via the point of sale (POS) system or even your HVAC system, leaving the information on the network vulnerable. Any network enabled system must follow that cyber strategy. According to a recent IHL survey, PCI and data breach protection take 35 percent of the overall loss prevention focus for an organization.
    
2. Physical Security. Having a physical access control strategy in place is the perfect complement to an existing surveillance system. With all the new hires during the holiday season, retailers typically see an increase in theft. Physical access control will allow your merchant client to track a person’s activity within the store and throughout the warehouse via their ID card and also allow them to keep an eye on their activity with surveillance cameras, therefore reducing shrink and increasing profits.
    
3. Facial Recognition. This technology allows you to recognize, identify or verify a person, all with the right camera and software. It can improve customer service and protect assets by identifying important customers or known offenders, allowing your merchant client to act accordingly. Beyond that, this technology can even give you an idea of the age range and gender of customers and even their level of interest in the displays.
    
4. POS Integration For Video Validation. Having a POS system fully integrated with an IP-based video surveillance solution will help stop fraudulent returns, which happens quite often during and after the holiday season. By installing this feature, retailers can help increase revenue and decrease shrink by adding the visual verification of any exceptions that occurred at point of sale.
    
5. Heat Mapping. Video analytics allows retailers to optimize merchandising by viewing and analyzing traffic patterns within the store. This technology is used in preparation for the busy holiday shopping season to identify the “hot” and “cold” areas within a store. In addition to the knowledge of the “hot” areas of the store for merchandising purposes, knowing where the “cold” areas are lets you know where potential thieves would go to remove tags and/or conceal merchandise. According to the IHL survey, only 20 percent of respondents plan on updating their video analytics technology this year.

To wrap up, technology trends were heavily based in video surveillance systems and technologies. It is critical for retailers during the holiday shopping season -- and beyond --  to make sure their businesses are safe and secure to ensure to reduce shrink, but also streamline operations to increase sales and revenue.