@Corzhens....you make a good point there! I guess they do it in part to observe shopping trends, although they could just as easily track them via their modern, highly computerised POS systems! I guess with the high level of theft that goes on these days, that could be another one of their reasons. Gone are the days when it was frowned upon to take unpaid for goods from a store. Nowadays people unashamedly take food items and eat them without a care in the world, shoving the leftovers or wrappers in between shelves....just shameful!!
There is all kinds of 'spying' with loyalty cards, coupons too as they can see what people choose to buy. Once you step into a store they can record you and often they use these tapes to train staff to show them how people look at shelves and where the hot spots are. It's the same in malls, so they can see where the most popular locations are; need to the restrooms or near a car park or escalator.
Yes, everyone has heard of industrial espionage...but no one ever talks about consumer espionage. It is really quite easy in these days of computers to see what people are buying, looking at or talking about. I know sometimes I will talk about or look at something online, just to have an ad show up in my mail or on my facebook for the very same thing. It is a little scary how many details are known about you in the world.
Well, I am not surprised about the "spying" that the article mentioned and I certainly don't feel my privacy has been offended in any way because of it. First of all, you wouldn't believe the amount of money that retail stores lose from theft. Any way that they can prevent it has to be exercised. Besides, it only raises the price of the goods that consumers like us pay. Second, it is smart to observe customers to see their reaction to the way a display looks or their reaction when they see something they like, but then look at the price tag and are turned off. All this information is just used by the store to give the customer more of what they want, too, which can also mean a better selection of things that an area or region may be more apt to purchase.
I wouldn't doubt it because they will just say that they are doing it for loss prevention and that they were not spying on people at all. I am sure that there is tons of footage of me in stores. I just accept it as fact.
I never thought of it as consumer espionage. That's a good description. I find it ridiculous that we are expected to willingly give away so much personal information. Yet, most people are all too willing to do it with a shrug of the shoulders. Since that's the case, of course they are going to take advantage of it. I'm going to learn more about this, and stick to less intrusive stores. The ones I get the best deals in are generally local, mom and pop stores that don't have all this anyway, so I'll still save money without all the intrusiveness.
This isn't surprising to me at all. I've know stores were pretty invasive in terms of privacy and such. They're looking to make the most money possible so of course they're going to down their homework. They also want to prevent losses by theft. But is still a bit creepy to hear about it.
Given that online shopping is more able to do this I think physical stores just want to compete but I agree that some of it feels like it's going a step too far. Thankfully my area is not that technologically advanced yet or at least as much as I know, but I'm sure sooner or later it will catch up with the rest of the world too. I think eventually an agreement between customer and seller has to be made wherein they should at least be upfront about it as well as what it is exactly they will be monitoring when they do it but I doubt that will happen.
