UK malls to track shoppers’ mobiles
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Mobile phone tracking technology is being put to good use watching how punters migrate around a shopping centre, thanks to gear from Portsmouth-based Path Technologies.
By installing receivers around a shopping centre the company can pick up communication between handsets and base stations, enabling them to track shoppers to within a metre or two - enough to spot the order in which shops are visited. Two UK shopping centres are already using the tech, with three more deploying in the next few months.
This information is used to work out if shoppers are dropping in to visit one particular store, or doing the rounds of 15 different shoe shops before going back to buy the first pair seen. Retailers will pay good money for this kind of data, but while existing solutions are based on counting heads or asking questions of a selected few, watching where the phones go is far more useful.
Dear marketing person - is it really, really so difficult to understand that we just want you to fucking sod off every now and then, and just leave us alone?
It is tricky. First, I don’t want to be tacked. Second, I want the shops to be in the right place, right order, with the right service.
Sometimes this boils down to: Hey, make it all as I would like it, but no, I won’t tell you how I like it.
We should lower our expectations toward shops too.