Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year.
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones. While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store.
The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?
While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones. But obtaining that information comes with privacy concerns. The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked.
"We won't be looking at singular shoppers," said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. "The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to."
The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer's IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores.
Now, U.S. retailers including JCPenney (JCP, Fortune 500) and Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500) are also working with Path Intelligence to use their technology, Biggar said.
Some retail analysts say the new technology is nothing to be worried about. Malls have been tracking shoppers for years through people counters, security cameras, heat maps and even undercover researchers who follow shoppers around.
But some industry analysts worry about the broader implications of this kind of technology. "Most of this information is harmless and nobody ever does anything nefarious with it," said Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. "But the reality is, what happens when you start having hackers potentially having access to this information and being able to track your movements?"
Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls -- Promenade Temecula in southern California and Short Pump Town Center in Richmond, Va. -- will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones. While the data that's collected is anonymous, it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store.
The goal is for stores to answer questions like: How many Nordstrom shoppers also stop at Starbucks? How long do most customers linger in Victoria's Secret? Are there unpopular spots in the mall that aren't being visited?
While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones. But obtaining that information comes with privacy concerns. The management company of both malls, Forest City Commercial Management, says personal data is not being tracked.
"We won't be looking at singular shoppers," said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Forest City. "The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to."
The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer's IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores.
Now, U.S. retailers including JCPenney (JCP, Fortune 500) and Home Depot (HD, Fortune 500) are also working with Path Intelligence to use their technology, Biggar said.
Some retail analysts say the new technology is nothing to be worried about. Malls have been tracking shoppers for years through people counters, security cameras, heat maps and even undercover researchers who follow shoppers around.
But some industry analysts worry about the broader implications of this kind of technology. "Most of this information is harmless and nobody ever does anything nefarious with it," said Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research. "But the reality is, what happens when you start having hackers potentially having access to this information and being able to track your movements?"
