74% of retailers use different technologies to track consumers in-store to provide a more personalised experience, but a huge 73% of consumers are not comfortable at all with the tracking tech.
In the ‘Next Generation In-store Technology’ survey conducted by CSC, 31% of retailers said that they used big data to track consumers in store, while 27% used facial recognition technology and 65% kept track of customers for security purposes.
However only 24% of the shoppers believe that the new age technology was useful for their shopping experience, while 34% object to stores collecting personal data.
Around 73% of the respondents were not comfortable with in-store technology tracking their behavior and considered it intrusive.
71% were not comfortable with tracking of information related to gender, age and the time spent in-store, while 65% claimed that they were uncomfortable with technology keeping track of how many times they have been in-store.
However, the survey found that 49% of younger customers belonging to the 16-24 age bracket were quite comfortable with in-store technologies tracking their movements, as they found that it could provide them with shopping benefits.
Though collection of real customer data is important to improve customer experience, nearly 14% were unaware about the fact that stores collect data on them, and only 6% of the customers have admitted to having benefitted from the collection of data.
Companies are using different types of technology including Beacon that delivers customised information to customers smartphone through a Bluetooth device, and most of the tech giants including Apple, Google and Facebook are providing hardware to retailers.
CSC UK retail business general manager Dave Baldwin said: "Having the right technology and infrastructure in place such as big data and customer analytics will help retailers to better understand their clients.
"However, this data needs to be laser focused as they look to adapt to changing consumer buying habits in this rapidly evolving environment."
