Thermal Customer Counts Get Cold Shoulder From The Limited’s CIO
Written by Fred J. AunSeptember 23rd, 2009
Many retail stores rely on customer-counting systems triggered by body heat despite the fact that (as proven by the case of roasted chickens being confused with infants) the technology has its shortcomings. Up until this summer, The Limited, a 240-store clothing chain with outlets in malls and shopping centers, was one of them, said CIO Roger Coville.
Coville said the chain suspected the thermal-imaging system wasn't too hot when it came to accuracy and, convinced by a pilot project that compared the system's capabilities for truthfulness with those of new equipment that relies instead on analysis of video data, In his testing, video-based counting was 20 percent more accurate than its thermal predecessor. Oh, the CIO added, it's also a lot cheaper, which makes it a hard combo to ignore.
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Our Comment SPAM system is getting very aggressive these days and has been blocking legitimate comments. If you post a comment and don't see it appear within 2 hours or so, can you please send a heads-up to customer-service@storefrontbacktalk.com? Ideally, please include the time you posted the comment. That will allow us to try and hunt for it. Thanks! P.S. We're working on fixing the system, but we don't want to lose any valuable comments in the meantime.
I have strong reservations about the 'individual' certification and posting of that information for merchants. Can you imagine the potential employee poaching that might occur? The implications when competitors can look up how many are certified with each of their competitors? 
-Christine
