One glance at Convenience Awards finalist Girish’s Premier in Barmulloch, Glasgow, tells you that this store is at the cutting edge of convenience. With its LED edge lit panel ceiling squares and funky beer cave, the store is packed with modern features. So it’s no surprise that forward-thinking owner Girish Jeeva welcomed the opportunity to test Retail AI’s newest technology.
Retail-AI has already been making a name for itself with bespoke in-store radio that incorporates strategically placed audio triggers to encourage customers to make additional purchases. Now the firm is using existing CCTV networks with automated real-time audio warnings to aid security, staff safety and compliance.
Girish has already trialled Retail AI’s newly unveiled first modular CCTV-driven AI package, which is able to identify underage customers and make in-store announcements to deter them from trying to buy alcohol. The store is now taking part in the testing of the firm’s anti-theft AI technology, which will recognise shoplifting behaviours and call out would-be thieves in real time via the audio system.
“The biggest thing that retailers are now worrying about is shoplifting,” Girish tells Convenience Store.
He explains how the new system will tackle this using AI. “RETaiL AI anti-theft doesn’t do facial recognition. It’s training to track objects lifted from the shelf against the behaviour of a customer, like let’s say they took a bottle off the shelf and the object put it in their jacket, the system would notice its absence and trigger a response..
“So every time someone takes something and puts it in their pocket, we’ve got audio in the shop that plays music and stuff. It would stop playing and air a preventative warning message.”
Girish says: “A lot of companies [offering AI anti-theft systems] send you video footage after the person walks out … but you can’t really do anything with that. With this system, if something happens, it would actually say it in the audio straight away, so you can actually stop them while they’re trying to steal before they walk out of the shop.”
He claims that an audio alert is also beneficial from a shopworker safety perspective because it saves staff from having to confront customers. “It prevents a more complicated situation, like if you were to go challenge them,” he says. “If the audio [warning] plays and the shoplifter listens to it, they know ‘OK, this is going to be a problem’, so before they get embarrassed, they’ll just put it back and leave the shop.”
Ahead of the shoplifting audio warnings going live in store next year, the shop is aiding the system’s algorithm training as it learns to recognise suspicious behaviour while tracking products removed from shelves. “We’ve been trialling it since last month and I think it would be Feb before it’s fully completed because obviously they [Retail-AI] need to find the flaws and they need to find what kind of behaviour [shoplifters demonstrate],” says Girish. “Right now, they are just [using] the shop to see what sort of behaviour is acceptable and what sort of behaviour is not acceptable.”
However, Girish is confident that the system will be highly effective, having already seen success with Retail-AI’s AgeSense and Q-bust Crowd-Flow Awareness package (see above video), which also uses a combination of cameras and audio warnings.
“We have a school next to us, so if somebody looks under the age of, 25 … let’s say they look like 15 or 16 years old and they go inside the beer cave, it will actually say it on the audio that ‘You’re underage, you shouldn’t be in there, please leave the beer cave’,” he says.
Meanwhile, the Q-Bust module counts the number of people in a queue for the checkout and makes an audio announcement, directing them to use the store’s self-serve tills before it gets too busy. He claims that it “works like magic”.
According to Girish, Retail-AI’s ability to use in-store audio for a range of purposes, across marketing, entertainment, compliance and security, will enable it to keep costs down. “From the conversations I’ve had with them, it doesn’t seem to be as expensive as a lot of companies that just do purely that [security], so it’s value for money,” he says. “The guys are pretty good as well, I completely trust them, which is why I don’t mind trialling the system.”
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