As some retailers are considering reopening, many are scrambling to find a way to conduct business while continuing to enforce social distancing guidelines. Now, a new retail technology offers to automate that process and take some of the burden off store associates and security staff.
On Thursday, WiFi location marketing, advertising, and analytics platform Aislelabs announced a new “social distancing smart counter” that can keep track of the real-time occupancy of a given space and then communicate that information to store employees.
The new platform could offer a solution to large retailers that must make the hard choice between reopening and continuing to suffer losses related to store closures caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the retail technology company said.
“It is a networked, mobile-based digital counter that requires no new hardware or capital expense to deploy,” Aislelabs said in a statement. “All security personnel stationed at every entrance can be kept apprised of the current occupancy count within a space that is easily customized, auditable and automatically synchronized across all devices.”
Security personnel can update a unified occupancy database through a web interface on their phones, adding or subtracting visitors from the overall count with a single click. As the tally is adjusted, the occupancy count is then automatically synchronized throughout the entire platform.
“In addition, Aislelabs also tracks and timestamps every mobile device click for each customer entrance and exit to ensure the entire system is auditable by regulatory organizations and management alike,” the company said.
This same information is also made available to executives and store management through a centralized dashboard that can be accessed remotely. The dashboard can also display occupancy information for multiple areas in multiple locations, possibly helping larger retailers maintain a unified approach to reopening their stores.