Retailers Are Tracking Your Footsteps

January 18, 2017 in Daily Bulletin

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Merchants are using our smartphones to track our movement within stores, wrote The Economist.

  • If a retailer see’s that shoppers often go from drinks to frozen foods, then they might want to push the sections closer together – or further apart, to expose customers to more products.
  • If you’re in a Westfield shopping mall and you search for a rival, you can expect to see a discount offered to you on the spot.
  • Once the systems become precise enough they could also be used to help guide customers to the exact spot where they’ll find their desired product.
  • Apple and Google are looking to build systems that will allow for this kind of tracking. Those who use public Wi-Fi shouldn’t expect privacy anyway – Wi-Fi agreements often confer the right on the provider to track location.

Read more on The Economist.