Indoor location in the retail industry

Here's an excerpt from a great article in Retail Customer Experience, looking at Meridian's indoor location solution and what it means for the retail industry in particular:

According to mobile strategist and analyst Bruce Krulwich of Grizzly Analytics, the tracking feature of Meridian's system is the key benefit to retailers. "What they [Meridian] give more than any others is that all of the information about where people are moving is stored in the cloud," Krulwich said. "For retailers to know the dwell time as people walk around the store, this is data that retailers find attractive. It helps retailers know how many people are standing around thinking about what to buy." ...

The article also discussed the balance between mass-market systems like Google Indoor Maps and dedicated systems built on technology from start-up companies in the space:

"I think that within 2-to-3 years we will see indoor mapping and location services as big as outdoor is now," he said. "All major mobile companies are working on this. But they are looking at mass market, not the retail side of it. They are not quite as accurate as ones tied into the retail experience. Even if Google comes up with [a map and position inside a store], there is still room for more retail-oriented companies to bring more accuracy."

See the full article (here) for more on the impact of indoor location on retail.

To learn more about indoor location technologies and services, click here for Grizzly Analytics' comprehensive coverage of indoor location technologies, including research by all the major mobile companies, along with almost 40 start-ups in the area.

Finding indoor location tech, and fans, at MWC 2017

Over 100,000 people are now planning to attend the 2017 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, in February. Many will flock to the newest devices, many to the keynote speeches from market leaders, and many to the latest tech from a huge variety of exhibitors. But how does anyone find all the tech they want to see? Anyone who has been to MWC in the past will tell you that there is no way to be sure you're seeing all that you want to see. Anyone interested in indoor location technology now has a solution. The Grizzly Analytics Guide to Indoor Location Technology at MWC2017 will list all the companies at MWC that are demonstrating, presenting or talking about indoor location tech. (Obviously we may miss one, but since we've reported on indoor location tech from over 200 companies , we expect to be fairly comprehensive.) The guide will be organized by technology type and also by MWC hall number, so you can plan your time accordingly. If you are exhibiting i

The year indoor location will truly take off

For years I've been writing sentences like "this will be the year that indoor location will explode into the market." I, and many others, have been expecting indoor location technology to enable the huge range of location-enabled apps, which currently work only outside where GPS signals are available, to work inside. But until now the promise of indoor location has remained a promise. But if we look at the reasons for this, we'll see that it is about to change. 2017 and 2018 are poised to be the years that the challenges keeping indoor location from going mainstream will be solved. First is accuracy. Most indoor location technologies until a year or so ago had accuracy in the range of 4 to 8 meters. This sounds good in principle, and in fact is better than GPS in many cases. But GPS systems are able to use road details to hide their inaccuracies, so that the blue dot seems to follow your driving car almost perfectly. But indoors, this sort of inaccuracy means y

Indoor Location, GeoFencing and Retail (Updated w/ video)

We've written a lot about indoor location technology , which is bringing location services indoors where GPS doesn't work. And we've written more recently about GeoFencing , a new location technology that enables smartphones to display content or take other actions when entering a specified area. And a few weeks ago we wrote about a company that was bringing the two together . Now Aisle411 has entered the ring, adding GeoFencing to their indoor solution . And they're bringing GeoFencing to life in the retail store industry . Aisle411's solution lets you navigate your way around a store to find specific products on the shelves. You can even enter your whole shopping list, or the items you need for a recipe, and the app will guide you around the store to buy everything you need quickly. And here's where the GeoFencing comes in: As you near certain products, you'll get offers for related products on your smartphone screen. They might be as s

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