In today’s world, retailer’s needed to identify and quickly respond to trends and challenges. This

Thesis: Although some claim that retail anthropologists’ placement of surveillance cameras for consumers while shopping is manipulative, it is not in fact unethical because their actions are meant for the benefit of the consumers, the benefit of the producers, and most importantly, shoppers are aware of the surveillance cameras.

Consumers are always satisfied with good customer service. When it comes to retail store customer service and satisfaction it is important because department stores are large in size and finding help can be difficult. Colloquy, a company concerned with building customer value, released a survey and asked 3,000 consumers across five geographical areas to rate their personal experiences with retailers. Macy’s was ranked number one in the department store category, with the most loyal customers. To keep up with technology advances Macy’s has invested time and money into developing a more efficient online shopping site, Macys.com and Macysweddingchannel. This investment cost nearly $300 million in 2006-2008 is being used to scale-up these fast-growing businesses through improvements in delivery efficiency, online site functionality and customer service. To enhance the shopping experience at Macy’s 100 stores in 2007 experienced remodeling and began introducing the most advanced POS registers and systems to the sales floors nationwide. Macy’s passion is product and people. There continuing pursuit is to have unique fashionable merchandise ready for customer satisfaction. Macy’s promise is to always carry the best brands and the most-wanted items. They also believe in hiring the right employees. With the right employees, there will be a sense of motivation and helpfulness. The American Customer Satisfaction Index covers 200 companies’ products and

It’s an effective way to speak directly to the customers’ needs, while offering them the right product solution.

They can use data to make lines shorter and check out smoother. They just want what is best for the their customers and in store tracking helps make sure that consumers are always at a satisfactory level.

This way, they are able to share the personal experiences they have had with the product to the consumer.

The economic success of retailers greatly depends on their ability to reach customers and meet customer demands in ways that is convenient for the customer. No longer can retailers expect customers to only shop at their retail stores. Retailers are required to provide customers with the multiple shopping channels and flexible fulfillment options that they demand. Companies who fail to do so will see their customers take their business to competitors who are both willing and able to serve customers based on consumer demand (xxx)

We live in a society where we are watched constantly by social media, twitter, employers and even shopping surveillance cameras. Although each outlet has its different uses for watching, there are pros and cons. Social media may share life styles or events with users with just a touch of a button or click of a mouse. Twitter updates the user with instant news about certain individuals or celebrities and what is trending. An employer keeps a watchful eye on a new employee to make sure they are the right fit for the company or can also watch to make sure their assets are secure. Surveillance is mostly thought of as monitoring assets, but what about the true assets it monitors, the consumer at a store. Consumers are the bread and butter of the store, without the consumer there are no sales, and if no sales then there would be no store. I refute the claim that the retail anthropologists’ surveillance of consumers is manipulative or unethical. In fact, I think the surveillance of consumers can help both the retailer and the consumer. Surveillance can provide an overall good shopping experience for both consumer and retailer. The surveillance videos can show which products the consumer wants and buys, it can help the retailer place good products in good organizational areas, and provide not only the consumer, but the retailer with a good overall shopping experience.

When entering a store, is there a feeling of being watched? There are stores that have surveillance solely for the reduction of stolen merchandise. Then there are stores that have more than the regular surveillance that tracks the customer throughout the store. The cameras watch what the consumers picks up, how much time spent in a specific area of the store or time not spent at the store. The checkout stand keeps a copy of the receipt of the items a person has bought every time. The copy of the receipt is sent to another computer for holding to see what has all been bought and by what customer. There are more reason to disagree with the claim that surveillance of consumers by retail anthropologist is manipulative and unethical, than there

Consumers have certain behavioral tendencies when faced in certain situations. In Why We Buy, the author Paco Underhill details certain behavioral characteristics people tend to have in different types of retail stores. Many consumers don’t think about what their actions mean when checking out or buying products. But to Mr. Underhill, the gender of the person, the people they’re with, the amount of times the person touches an object, the amount of time spent on checking a particular product, the time they came in, and the time they leave, all factor into a database to determine different behavioral trend consumers have. It is these trends that they find in order to correct a problem a store or retailer didn’t know they have to increase sales and create a better flow in the store environment.

At 0:48 of Retail Stores Tracking Annie Gaus states “Nordstrom posted a sign at at least one of their locations advising customers that if they don’t want to participate turn off their phones or disable wifi.” There is way to not participate is to turn their phones it’s simple. Shoppers are not giving away their personal information or anything. The stores are just trying to help you when you get your shopping done. In addition in paragraph six of Stores Spy Paula Ebben claims “Future of Privacy is working with privacy advocates, retailers, and tech companies on a set of guidelines for this type of in-store tracking. The rules would be enforceable by the federal government. One of those possible rules would be to let customers know when they are being tracked.” Stores are not going to just randomly start tracking you are protect by rules by the federal government. It is not like the stores are doing this to crack up your information they are doing something that you will 100% benefit from, but probably a little slower than you think. For example, if you are always walking down the milk aisle, then they would make changes so it’s quicker to get what you need and go home. The tracking to help not harm.

The bargaining power of customers is high. First of all, the customer size is tremendous globally, which also has an accelerating growth rate in recent years. Customers’ leverage is strengthening as a result of this. Another inevitable factor is that with countless retailors online, there is low switching cost for customers to find other alternative companies that suits their desire to conduct purchases. Moreover, consumers today are more sophisticated. Consumers are less commit to impulsive-buying, yet are more willing to study about product features and evaluate their options before purchasing online. Their purchase pattern can also be hard to learn too.

Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.

In today’s world of various products and services, businesses aim to excel and lead the competition by marketing the most number of consumers, which is a full time endeavor of business. To survive in the market, a firm or an organization has to be constantly innovating and understand the latest consumer trends and tastes. Marketers need to understand consumer behavior because the decision-making process for consumers is anything but straight forward. Consumers’ behaviors and their purchasing patterns is a huge advantage to understanding the way customers think and the reason for their purchases. Therefore, the study of consumer behavior is important because it allows the

Understanding consumer buying behavior entails marketing, relationships, and consumer behavior. Consumer behavior comprises all the consumer decisions and activities connected with the choosing, buying, using and disposing of goods and services. Marketers must pay very close attention to consumer behavior that occurs before the purchase and after the particular product has been used. Studying consumer habits is one of the steps in marketing search and analysis. In addition to other basic principles of consumer buying habits, marketers also need to study the decision and actions of real people. Until recent history the study of consumer behavior was focused on generalized consumer decisions. With

As Ray Burke talked about in his speech “How stores track your shopping behavior / Ray Burke / TEDx Indianapolis”, the retailers, such as the Marsh supermarkets, are analyzing the backgrounds and the family structures of the consumers which are their personal information, which may get them in a dangerous situation when these data are disclosed to the third parties such as someone with nefarious purposes and the fraud companies. If these data of the information is running without regulation and protection, it would be easy to be used by those who want to defraud the customers. The methods used by the retail industry as an undercurrent manipulation are not only gathering information through the check-out scanner but also recording videos through cameras as well as many other ways such as analyzing the search records of an individual who shop online, which may provide some malicious people with the access to the personal information. As the result, there are many people have received tons of spammers which include numerous false advertisement due to the information leaks. On the other hand, as to those VCRs, such as the videotape library of Paco Underhill, according to “The Science of Shopping” (Malcolm Gladwell), things will turn out to be terrible if these videos resource are hacked by criminals, such as the stalkers and the