You know those ads on the sides of some webpages that seem to know everything you’ve shopped for, like, ever? This very well may be the kind of shopping experience retailers like Nordstrom, American Apparel and other brick-and-mortar stores have in mind for the future. Each of these companies has recently experimented with indoor customer tracking, as reported by the MIT Technology Review. Retailers not only want to track sales numbers and trends, but also, similar to sites like Amazon and Google, take in statistics showing what customers are “viewing” or how much time is spent in each section of the store.
With new indoor location tracking technology, brick and mortar retailers would be able to intelligently send advertisements and deals to specific shoppers, based on past preferences. So pretty soon, if you’re in the electronics section of a store, you might receive a notification on your iPhone directing you to all the televisions on sale. Or perhaps you’re grabbing a frozen pizza at the grocery store when all of the sudden you receive a coupon notification for chicken wings (Mmmm).