Using Hikvision cameras to map retail trends for Minisio in Poland

The retail industry is constantly looking to find new ways to be relevant in the ever-increasing shadow of online shopping.

Researchers have predicted a 17.5 percent growth in the eCommerce share of global retail sales in 2021, rising from 13.7% in 2019. When designer brand Miniso opened new shops in Poland, they used Hikvision technology to give them the edge.

Challenge

The management team at Miniso had several specific questions they needed answers to make the stores successful in the cut-throat high street environment. How to know if the marketing strategy is working? What is the conversion rate of purchases? What are the ‘hot areas’ of the store, and do these represent best-selling products?

Miniso HQ wanted to be able to see the situation in the other four stores without having to visit them separately

Originally, with no access to significant information, they relied on experience and conversation with staff. But there was no way to verify these findings. They also needed to be able to get this information remotely i.e. management in Miniso HQ in Warsaw wanted to be able to see the situation in the other four stores without having to visit them separately. Sometimes, they resorted to sending people to individual stores to manually count the people, a very time-consuming and costly exercise.

Cameras, NVRs, and software platform

Miniso turned to Hikvision AI products, with a solution built by Polish reseller Volta, including people counting cameras, fisheye cameras, and NVRs. These were all coordinated using the HikCentral software platform. A people counting camera in each store counts people passing by, while another counts people entering and leaving.

With this tailor-made solution, management could calculate how many people were passing by to see a purchasing conversion rate. This also helps them to know whether the marketing strategy is working. They can analyse the information further to see whether the rate of people entering the store is dropping and whether that relates to the number of those passing outside. 

Managing shopping pattern insights 

Miniso’s management can then look into the causes of the numbers, along with sales figures, to form a picture. For example, whether there is an external factor affecting shoppers either to pass by or to enter. Because Miniso has the same technology set up in all the stores in Poland, they can compare different locations. This also comes in useful when it’s time to negotiate rent with shopping malls.

Using ceiling installation of several fisheye cameras, the system can generate heat maps. This helps managers to see where ‘hot areas’ are, helping them to allocate products in the optimal place for promotion. Hot areas can also be compared with sales figures to provide further insights into shopping patterns. 

Video management platform

The video management platform allows accessing information from different offices and mobile applications

All the information provided by the system is coordinated, and business information on both the layout and the original image can be overlaid in Miniso’s HQ in Warsaw. The professional video management platform allows managers to access information from different offices and mobile applications anywhere.

This makes life a lot easier for the operations team as they need to check the situation in all stores. It also means that everything can be viewed simultaneously, so they can identify trends throughout the network of stores. 

AI surveillance

Byron Zeng, Vice President of Miniso Poland, says, “The high accuracy of conversion rate the solutions provide solves a number of our management issues. We can now easily see what’s going on in the other stores, including heat mapping, which makes management of the whole networks so much more efficient.”

This is a great example of how AI surveillance products can change the landscape of business decision-making. In a fiercely competitive environment, like a shopping mall or high street, shopping trend data can help a retailer to survive. This worked so well for Miniso, that they decided to use the solution in their stores across the whole of Europe potentially about 200 stores in the next year.