Retailers are increasingly using technology to gather data about in-store shoppers’ behavior and moods, using video surveillance and signals from their cellphones and apps to learn information as varied as their sex, how many minutes they spend in the candy aisle and how long they look at merchandise before buying it, Stephanie Clifford and Quentin Hardy report in The New York Times.
All sorts of retailers â€" including national chains, like Family Dollar, Cabela’s and Mothercare, a British company, and specialty stores like Benetton and Warby Parker â€" are testing technologies that and using them to decide on matters like changing store layouts and offering customized coupons.
But while consumers seem to have no problem with cookies, profiles and other online tools that let e-commerce sites know who they are and how they shop, some bristle at the physical version, at a time when government surveillance â€" of telephone calls, Internet activity and Postal Service deliveries â€" is front and center because of the leaks by Edward J. Snowden.
“Way over the line,†one consumer posted to Facebook in response to a local news story about Nordstrom’s efforts at some of its stores. Nordstrom says the counts were made anonymous. Technology specialists, though, say the tracking is worrisome.
“The idea that you’re being stalked in a store is, I think, a bit creepy, as opposed to, it’s only a cookie â€" they don’t really know who I am,†said Robert Plant, a computer information systems professor at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, noting that consumers can rarely control or have access to this data.
