But there's no reason that this couldn't work well with improvements in sensors and implementations. If you don't think this is possible in a highly reliable way, you are wrong.
Technology is ever advancing and improving and I’m sure eventually we will get there. Or we’re already there, like I said, I’m out of the loop for past few years so maybe some amazing improvements have happened.
Another inhibitor of this technology is how cheap/behind retail companies tend to be.
We want advanced analytics.
Ok, we can set up these cameras and the like which will send everything to our servers for computation.
We only have dsl at the store.
Ok, then we need to set up a server(s) at the store.
We only want to spend 2k max per store, and use sub-sub-sub contractors to actually set up this equipment.
All of this pain and trouble scared me away from working with retail focused companies for past few years.
This. I am a lead developer in a leading FR company, and this comment right here hits the nail on the head. Every one of your points is an active issue with retail. It's a pain in the asshole.
With optical cameras, wifi and Bluetooth signatures, location data, 3rd party databases, and ML, there is more than enough data to get an ID enough shoppers to care. None of that tech is prohibitively expensive. It just requires someone to build out a cost-effective implementation with off the shelf parts.
There's a lot more "just" to deploying anything of the sort to a 1,000+ physical store footprint.
At minimum, what's the local network situation? Where are you storing and processing the take? Are you installing edge compute or transferring it out? If the later, what are your latency requirements?
I try and take a healthy dose of "maybe it's a harder problem than I thought" whenever something is valuable, looks easy, yet no one is doing it.
This plan all falls apart when the retail CEO has "his nephew manage the project, 'cause he's good with computers". Then a 20 year old more concerned with girls and video games appears. He has zero technical experience beyond video games, and attitude that you're his flunky. Seen it. Multiple times.
Another inhibitor of this technology is how cheap/behind retail companies tend to be.
We want advanced analytics. Ok, we can set up these cameras and the like which will send everything to our servers for computation.
We only have dsl at the store. Ok, then we need to set up a server(s) at the store.
We only want to spend 2k max per store, and use sub-sub-sub contractors to actually set up this equipment.
All of this pain and trouble scared me away from working with retail focused companies for past few years.