Find Out What Grabs CustomersFind Out What Grabs Customers

Clickstream data-analysis tools can tell online stores everything from who visits their Web sites to how long they stay to which promotions catch their eye. But E-retailers' brick-and-mortar counterparts are limited to analyzing transactional data.

To give those shops better insight, startup Brickstream Corp. this week will unveil video-recording technology and business-intelligence software for tracking customer in-person behavior in retail stores and banks. The system will help retailers determine what paths customers follow in a store, what areas get the most traffic, what in-store displays and promotions shoppers look at and respond to, how quickly they're served by employees, and how many walk out without making a purchase. Banks will see how long customers wait in line.

In stores and banks, Brickstream installs video cameras, which record customers as they shop or wait in line. Videos are fed into computers where Brickstream software, using patented algorithms that assess images, creates time logs. Brickstream's Intelligence for Service and Intelligence for Marketing hosted applications then analyze those time logs. To protect customer privacy, the tapes and collected information aren't linked to the identities of individual customers.

Brickstream's system is the most sophisticated use of video yet for gathering business intelligence, AMR Research analyst Pete Abell says, but its analytical applications are still in their infancy. "They'll need more applications that will put hard dollars into the retailer's or merchandise supplier's pocket," he adds. Brickstream is developing a third application for analyzing space utilization.

Brickstream is also targeting consumer packaged-goods makers who use the system in cooperation with retailers. Brickstream says several customers have installed the product, but it won't identify them.

The system is available now; the cost depends on the number of stores and cameras. A two-year contract for a system to monitor checkout lines would cost $25,000 to $50,000.