Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Forget Big Brother! Retailers Are Watching Your Every Move.

Retailers from some of your favorite name brands are using technology these days to spy on consumers. We will discuss three ways this is happening in this weeks blog post.
1)Mannequin spying-Retailers place a small camera in the eye of a store mannequin to spy on consumers.
They do this because it helps them to personalize their offers as growth slows.
They help brands know their customers better and also give insight into what men/women want to purchase.

2)RFID TAGS(Radio Frequency Identification Chip)-A wireless use of electromagnetic fields
to transfer data, for purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects.
A RFID tag gives a retailer great visibility to know where a product is.
Inventories are getting done in less time and with more accuracy.

3)Cell Phone Tracking By Malls-This is done by following Wi-Fi signals from their smartphones.
The reason Retailers do this is to learn more about customers shopping habits.
It also helps them come up with new ideas like changing store layouts, and offering store coupons.

Now of course many say including privacy groups that this type of retail spying is walking a thin line with invasion of privacy. It also could raise some legal and ethical issues and it can appear a little too creepy.

References

Bionic Mannequins Spy on Shoppers to Boost Luxury Sales

By Andrew Roberts Nov 21, 2012




The Wall Street Journal

Zara Builds Its Business Around RFID

'Fast Fashion' Meets Smarter Inventory; Retailer Learns From Others' Mistakes

By

Christopher Bjork








The New York Times

Attention, Shoppers: Store Is Tracking Your Cell

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD and QUENTIN HARDY

Published: July 14, 2013






Wednesday, September 10, 2014

The wonders of OneDrive(Formally known as SkyDrive)

As I wrote in an earlier blog post titled "
The Sky's The Limit" (File Storage) Cloud storage is one of the many types of
file storage methods you can use.
This is definitely the future of file storage. Gone are the days of HDD'S.
There is no carrying around bulky equipment ,or tiny flash drives.
The storage is online for you to upload whatever the need is. You can access anywhere there is WI-fi or an internet connection. With use on laptops ,tablets, and smartphones. This makes the cloud so appealing to many users today and its easy use makes it an even better alternative.