JP2001331875A - Consumer behavior monitoring device and consumer behavior monitoring method used for the device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a consumer behavior monitoring device capable of estimating sales opportunity loss or latent demand of an article based thereon without troubling a consumer and without troubling the true purchase intention of the consumer with false information. SOLUTION: Visit detecting equipment 11 detects the visit of a consumer to a store 1 by signal processing and transmits that visit information and a time stamp showing the time through a network 100 to an analytic terminal 2. A POS terminal 12 transmits the purchase information of the consumer through the network 100 to the analytic terminal 2 together with the time information. On the basis of the information from the visit detecting equipment 11 and the POS terminal 12, the analytic terminal 2 measures the sales opportunity loss.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a consumer behavior monitoring device and a consumer behavior monitoring method used therefor, and more particularly to information such as visitor drop-in information and loss of sales opportunity in a space such as a store, and a consumer state at that time. The present invention relates to a method for monitoring consumer behavior.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, POS (Point Of Sa) has been proposed.
In the (les) system, the time of sale is determined for each product by performing hourly sales analysis for each product, and the number of orders at each store is adjusted in accordance with the time. For the above-mentioned analysis of sales by product for each product, see JP-A-3-005.
No. 898.

In order to eliminate such trial and error and adjust the optimal order quantity, the sales opportunity loss is measured,
Estimating potential demand is one possible solution. As one of the methods, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-146984 discloses a system in which a consumer inputs "a product that he wanted but did not buy and the reason" into a POS, and the store provided a discount service and a service for giving points. Is disclosed.

[0004]

In the conventional method of monitoring consumer behavior described above, in the case of the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 3-005898, since the potential demand is not known, it is necessary to optimize the method by trial and error. There is a problem that the number of orders must be adjusted.

In the case of the method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 07-146984, since the consumer directly inputs the information into the POS, the consumer is troubled or wants to receive a discount service. There is a problem that some consumers may send out the information.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems and to reduce the sales opportunity loss and the like without giving the consumer bother and without disturbing the true purchase intention of the consumer by false information. It is an object of the present invention to provide a consumer behavior monitoring device capable of estimating a potential demand for a product based on the consumer behavior and a consumer behavior monitoring method used therefor.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A consumer behavior monitoring device according to the present invention comprises a drop-in detection device for detecting a drop-in of a customer's sales floor and a POS (P) for managing purchase information of the customer.
point of sales) terminal, and an analysis terminal for measuring a sales opportunity loss in which a customer did not purchase a product even if the user stopped at the counter based on the stop-by information from the drop-off detection device and the purchase information from the POS terminal. I have.

[0008] A consumer behavior monitoring method according to the present invention provides a POS (P) managing drop-in information from a drop-in detection device for detecting a drop-in of a customer at a sales floor and purchase information of the customer.
point of sales), and based on the purchase information from the terminal, the sales opportunity loss in which the user does not purchase the product even when the user stops at the sales floor is measured.

That is, the consumer behavior monitoring device of the present invention automatically detects the number of consumers who have stopped at a specific sales floor by a stop detection device such as a camera provided at the sales floor,
Calculates the number of people who bought the product at the sales floor from the data of the POS (Point Of Sales) terminal, and generally takes advantage of the fact that the time difference between stopping at the sales floor and buying it is not so large, so that it takes about one hour Calculate the number of people dropped in-the number of people purchased in the analysis terminal within the range with the width,
Measure sales opportunity loss.

[0010] Thus, since the consumer's purchasing behavior is mechanically measured and the sales opportunity loss is measured, the consumer's true purchasing intention is misled by false information without giving the consumer trouble. It is possible to estimate the sales opportunity loss and the potential demand for the product based on the sales opportunity loss.

That is, in the consumer behavior monitoring device of the present invention, in a space such as a store, the visitor's drop-in information and the video / audio at that time are automatically collected, and the contents and the POS are collected.
By integrating data with the optimal number of orders
It can be used to advise improvement points. In addition, it is possible to collect data mainly used for marketing, such as a loss of sales opportunity in which a consumer did not purchase a product even when the consumer stopped at a sales floor and a consumer state at that time.

[0012]

Next, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to one embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 1, a consumer behavior monitoring device according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a drop-in detection device 11 and a POS terminal 12 installed in a store (store) 1 and a drop-in detection device 11 and P
The analysis terminal 2 is connected to the OS terminal 12 via the network 100.

The drop-in detection device 11 detects a drop-in of the consumer to the store 1 by signal processing, and transmits the drop-in information and a time stamp indicating the time to the analysis terminal 2 via the network 100. Here, as the drop-in detection device 11, devices such as a camera, a weight sensor, an infrared sensor, and an ultrasonic sensor attached to the store 1 can be considered.

The POS terminal 12 stores the purchase information of the consumer together with the time information via the network 100 via the analysis terminal 2.
Send to The analysis terminal 2 includes a drop-in detection device 11 and a PO
The sales opportunity loss is measured based on the information of the S terminal 12.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the number of sales opportunity losses measured in one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a method of detecting an approaching sales floor by an infrared sensor in one embodiment of the present invention. is there. The operation of the entire consumer behavior monitoring device according to one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

The drop-off detection device 11 detects a drop-in of the consumer by using any one of a camera, a weight sensor, an infrared sensor, and an ultrasonic sensor attached to the store 1 by signal processing. The timestamp indicating the time is sent to the analysis terminal 2 via the network 100.
Send to Hereinafter, a drop-in detection method will be described in the order of the weight sensor, the ultrasonic sensor, the infrared sensor, and the camera.

In the case of detecting with a weight sensor, a weight sensor is laid on the floor of the store 1 and when a certain weight or more is detected for a certain time or more, it is determined that the consumer has stopped at the store 1.

In the case of detection by an ultrasonic sensor, an ultrasonic sensor is installed in front of a product shelf (not shown) of the store 1, and when an object is detected in front of the product shelf for a certain period of time or more, the consumer operates the store 1 Is determined to have stopped by. As the related technology, a technology described in “Development of Automatic Measurement and Analysis System for Customer Flow in Service Industry (Supermarket / Department Store)” (Proceedings of the 30th Automatic Control Union Lecture Meeting, pp.585-586) There is.

When detecting with an infrared sensor, as shown in FIG.
Is placed, and the light passes through the infrared sensor 3 but does not pass through another infrared sensor 4 (see FIG. 3A), or the light passes through the same infrared sensor 5 twice [see FIG.
(B), it is determined that the consumer has stopped at the store 1. In FIG. 3, reference numerals 3a, 4a, 5a, and 6a denote detection ranges of the infrared sensors 3 to 6.

In the case of detection by a camera, a general method using background difference / inter-frame difference or Japanese Patent Application No. 11-364 is disclosed.
No. 875, a person is detected using image processing as shown in the person detection method, and a consumer stops at the store 1 when the person is present in the store 1 for a certain period of time or more. Is determined.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a person detecting method used in one embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 4, after edge detection by image processing, in order to extract a preset shape, each edge is determined at five points A, B, C, D, and E relative to a certain point O. The direction detects point O and detects it as the head of a person.

While the drop-in detection device 11 is transmitting drop-in information and a time stamp indicating the detection time to the analysis terminal 2 via the network 100, the POS terminal 12 displays the purchase information of the consumer dropped in the store 1. Is transmitted to the analysis terminal 2 via the network 100 together with the time information.

The analysis terminal 2 includes a drop-in detection device 11 and a PO
The sales opportunity loss is measured based on the information of the S terminal 12. This is a store 1 that is detected by the drop-in detection device 1 at regular intervals.
The number of people dropping in (number of people A) and the number of consumers (number of people B) who have purchased the products on the product shelf detected by the POS terminal 12 are calculated, and are calculated by “number of people A−number of people B”. The number of sales opportunity losses is obtained, and the result is displayed in a graph as shown in FIG.

As described above, the number of sales opportunity losses is obtained by the analysis terminal 2 and the result is graphed, whereby the optimal number of orders per time can be advised to the store 1 side. For example, in the example shown in FIG.
Since the number of sales opportunity losses is large during 0, it is possible to advise that it is effective to arrange the product on the product shelf immediately before this.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 5, another embodiment of the present invention is a consumer behavior monitoring apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 1 except that a camera 13 is arranged on a POS terminal 12 so that a face of a purchaser can be photographed. And the same components are denoted by the same reference numerals. The operation of the same component is the same as that of the embodiment of the present invention.

The drop-in detection device 11 transmits an image of the consumer's face to the network 10 when the consumer drops in the store 1.
0 to the analysis terminal 2. The POS terminal 12 stores all of the consumer's purchase information and the buyer's personal information that can be input from the terminal together with time information in the network 100.
To the analysis terminal 2 via. The camera 13 transmits a face image of a purchaser near the POS terminal 12 to the analysis terminal 2 via the network 100.

The analysis terminal 2 saves the face image of the dropped-in person and collects data on the person who did not purchase the product even though the user dropped in on a not-shown product shelf of the store 1 in parallel.

The face image of the dropped-in person is stored in the analysis terminal 2 every time the drop-in detection device 1 detects a drop-in to the store 1 at that time. For convenience of explanation, the stored face database is referred to as a visitor face database.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the analysis terminal 2 according to another embodiment of the present invention. These FIG.
The operation of the analysis terminal 2 according to another embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

The analysis terminal 2 includes the POS terminal 12 and the camera 1
When the information from 3 is input, the face image in the visitor's face database D1 is compared with the purchaser's face image D2 input from the camera 13 (step S1 in FIG. 6). A number of face image matching methods have been proposed. However, as a method capable of performing stable and high-speed matching, “Non-Coop” has been proposed.
erative Face Recognition "
(Kawade et al., Proceedings of the 5th Image Sensing Symposium,
1999, p. 51-54). This method is called Gabor Fil.
Ter is used to detect a spatial frequency feature point, and collate a person based on the relative positional relationship between the feature points.

The analysis terminal 2 determines whether or not there is a visitor's face database D1 that matches the purchaser's face image D2 based on the result of the face collation (step S2 in FIG. 6). If there is no match, the analysis terminal 2 ends this processing operation.

On the other hand, if there is a match, the analysis terminal 2 determines from the data of the POS terminal 12 whether or not there is a commodity displayed on the commodity shelf among the purchased commodities. It is determined whether a product on the product shelf has been purchased (step S3 in FIG. 6).

If the analysis terminal 2 has purchased the product on the product shelf, it does not use the information of the purchaser for data analysis, and therefore deletes the purchaser's face data from the visitor's face database D1 (FIG. 6). Step S6), this processing operation ends.

If the analysis terminal 2 does not purchase a product on the product shelf, the analysis terminal 2 counts it as the number of sales opportunity losses (FIG. 6).
Step S4), the personal information (sex, age, other purchased goods, etc.) of the consumer input from the POS terminal 12 is stored in the non-purchaser database D3 (FIG. 6, step S)
5) The face data of the consumer is deleted from the visitor face database D1 (step S6 in FIG. 6), and this processing operation is terminated.

As described above, in another embodiment of the present invention,
In addition to the effects of the embodiment of the present invention, the following specific effects are also obtained. That is, in another embodiment of the present invention, the store 1
, It is possible to specify a non-purchaser who did not purchase a product in the store 1, and it is possible to estimate a sales opportunity loss with high accuracy. In addition, by accumulating non-buyer information in the database,
Data can be collected to analyze the causes of lost sales opportunities.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 7, in the consumer behavior monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention, the inside of the drop-in detection device 11 is at least the camera 1.
1a and a microphone 11b.

The sensor (camera 11) of the drop-in detection device 11
a, weight sensor, ultrasonic sensor, infrared sensor, etc.)
The voice is transmitted to the analysis terminal 2 and stored.

However, when another embodiment of the present invention is added to one embodiment of the present invention, the above-mentioned video and audio are stored in addition to the graph of the number of sales opportunity losses as shown in FIG. .
In addition, when adding another embodiment of the present invention to another embodiment of the present invention, the above-mentioned video and audio are stored in the non-purchaser database D3 shown in FIG.

As described above, by storing the video and audio of the consumer who is stopping by at the store 1 (sales floor), the sales opportunity loss can be more accurately compared to one embodiment of the present invention or another embodiment. Can be analyzed.

As described above, by mechanically measuring the number of people who visit the store 1 and the number of people who bought the goods in the store 1, and measuring the sales opportunity loss based on the difference between the numbers, the number of sales opportunities in the store 1 is reduced. It is possible to measure the sales opportunity loss, which is important data in giving advice on the optimal number of orders.

Also, despite dropping into store 1,
The consumer who did not purchase the product in the store 1 is identified by comparing the face image at the time of stopping at the store 1 with the face image at the time of purchase, and the personal data of the identified person is input to the POS terminal 12. To collect personal data of consumers (non-purchasers) who did not purchase products in the store 1 even though they stopped by the store 1 to analyze the cause of the sales opportunity loss. Data can be collected.

Further, the drop-in detection device 11 has a camera 11
a and the microphone 11b are added, and the behavior of the non-purchaser is collected by video or audio when the sensor detects a drop-off, so that it is important to know the cause of the sales opportunity loss. The behavior of the person can be collected by video and audio.

Therefore, it is possible to estimate a sales opportunity loss and a potential demand of a product based on the sales opportunity without giving a consumer an annoyance and without misleading a consumer's true purchasing intention by false information. Can be.

[0044]

As described above, according to the present invention, drop-in information from a drop-in detection device that detects a drop-in of a customer's sales floor and purchase information from a POS terminal that manages customer's purchase information are used. By measuring the loss of sales opportunity that did not make a purchase even if you stopped at the sales floor, you can reduce the sales opportunity loss without giving the consumer bother and without confusing the true intention of the consumer with false information. There is an effect that a potential demand for a product based on the information can be estimated.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of the number of sales opportunity losses measured in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a method of detecting a stopover at a counter by an infrared sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a person detection method used in one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation of the analysis terminal 2 according to another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a consumer behavior monitoring device according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 store 2 analysis terminal 3-6 infrared sensor 2a, 4a, 5a, 6a detection range 11 drop-in detection device 11a, 13 camera 11b microphone 12 POS terminal 100 network

Claims (12)

[Claims] 1. A drop-in detection device for detecting a drop-in of a customer at a sales floor, and a POS (P) for managing purchase information of the customer.
point of sales) terminal, and an analysis terminal for measuring a sales opportunity loss in which the user did not purchase a product even if the user stopped at the counter based on the stop-by information from the drop-off detection device and the purchase information from the POS terminal. A consumer behavior monitoring device comprising: 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the drop-in detection device is any one of a camera, a weight sensor, an infrared sensor, and an ultrasonic sensor attached to the counter.
A consumer behavior monitoring device as described. 3. The consumer behavior monitoring device according to claim 1, further comprising a communication network for connecting said drop-in detection device and said POS terminal to said analysis terminal. 4. A first camera used as the drop-in detection device, and a second camera arranged near the POS terminal and acquiring a face image of a customer, wherein the analysis terminal includes The face image obtained by the first camera and the second
Collating with the face image acquired by the camera, and determining whether or not the purchaser is the purchaser based on the comparison result and the purchase information from the POS terminal. The consumer behavior monitoring device according to claim 1 or 3, wherein: 5. The consumer behavior monitoring device according to claim 4, wherein the purchase information obtained from the POS terminal when the sales opportunity loss is determined is stored in the analysis terminal. 6. A camera and a microphone disposed inside the drop-in detection device, wherein a video taken by the camera and a sound input to the microphone are stored in the analysis terminal. The consumer behavior monitoring device according to any one of claims 1 to 5, wherein 7. A stop-off at the sales floor based on stop-off information from a stop-off detection device for detecting a stop-off of the customer at the sales floor and purchase information from a POS (Point Of Sales) terminal for managing the purchase information of the customer. A consumer behavior monitoring method characterized in that a sales opportunity loss in which a product is not purchased is measured. 8. The apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the drop-in detection device is one of a camera, a weight sensor, an infrared sensor, and an ultrasonic sensor attached to the counter.
The consumer behavior monitoring method described. 9. The consumer behavior monitoring method according to claim 7, wherein the stop-by information of the drop-off detection device and the purchase information of the POS terminal are transmitted via a communication network. . 10. A face image acquired by a first camera used as the stop-over detection device, and a face image acquired by a second camera arranged near the POS terminal and acquiring a face image of a customer. And determining whether or not the customer is the purchaser based on the result of the comparison and the purchase information from the POS terminal, and determining that the sales opportunity is lost when the customer is not the customer. The consumer behavior monitoring method according to claim 7 or 9. 11. The consumer behavior monitoring method according to claim 10, wherein the purchase information obtained from the POS terminal when the sales opportunity loss is determined is stored. 12. A video camera according to claim 1, wherein a video taken by a camera provided inside said drop-off detection device and a sound input to a microphone provided inside said drop-off detection device are stored. The consumer behavior monitoring method according to any one of claims 7 to 11.