Retailers are also using video analytics remotely from centralized locations to see how regional stores are laid out and to ensure that end caps are set up correctly per marketing guidelines. This reduces travel budgets by reducing the number of trips required by central office staff throughout the year.

Another area of interest for marketers is the use of public view monitors (PVM), which in addition to displaying store surveillance images to shoppers, may also carry advertising and marketing images. These PVMs are becoming very popular and they can be seen scattered throughout many retail shops either showing in-house promotions or third party messages. But it is difficult and expensive to know how many people are viewing these marketing messages and the demographics of those who are.

Many retailers perform expensive manual surveys that use small sample sizes. However, this method often ends with inaccurate results. Using video analytics, retailers can see how many people are watching the monitors and for how long. In addition, advanced systems can even segment results by age group and sex. By adopting video analytics, retailers are finding invaluable customer feedback with a high return on their investments.

As a secondary bonus, studies have shown that the use of surveillance cameras in high-profit areas tends to attract customers. As counter intuitive as it may sound, shoppers are drawn to these areas, so retailers are capitalizing by installing surveillance cameras there.