How to use video analytics in retail security and operations

Security is where it starts. For most retailers, the first priority is reducing risk and protecting people, products, and locations. So, when something does happen, speed matters. You need to move from incident to resolution quickly, without spending hours scanning footage. 

Until that foundation is strong, it’s hard to focus on improving the shopping experience or streamlining operations. 

That’s where video analytics changes the game. It turns the footage you already capture into searchable, measurable insight. Instead of relying on observation and guesswork, you can investigate events faster, spot emerging risks and gain real-time awareness across your sites. 

And once your teams have that visibility, you can do more than secure your stores, you can start shaping better layouts, improving customer flow, and making smarter operational decisions, all powered by the same video intelligence. 

All BriefCam customers have access to the "Review" module. Then, depending on which edition they choose, they can also have the "Respond" and "Research" modules:

• Review: Investigate incidents quickly by filtering and searching video with precision 

• Respond: Get real-time alerts so you can act the moment something needs attention 

• Research: Turn long-term data into heatmaps, dashboards, and trends that reveal patterns across your stores 

For our retail customers, we recommend the Insights edition. This edition gives you all three modules, syncs with your video management software (VMS) and works across multiple sites, which makes a lot of sense for retail chains who want the same analytics across locations.  

Shrink remains one of retail’s biggest challenges, and investigating incidents manually takes time you don’t have. With the Review module, you can filter video by clothing color, direction of travel, dwell behavior and other attributes to find the exact moments you need in minutes instead of watching full recordings. That means faster investigations for suspected theft, quicker claim validation or even locating a missing child without the frustration of slow manual review.

Video analytics also helps you prevent issues before they escalate. With Respond, you get real-time alerts when someone lingers in a high-risk area, moves against the normal flow of traffic or behaves in a way that signals potential theft or safety concerns. Immediate awareness lets your team act confidently without disrupting the shopping experience.

And these insights don’t stop at the moment of incident. Over time, they strengthen your loss prevention strategy. When you can see where shrink is most likely to occur, which behaviors precede incidents and how often certain areas require attention, you can make proactive decisions that reduce risk and create a safer environment for customers and employees alike.

Once your stores are secure and you have reliable visibility into daily activity, you can start using video analytics to see how people move through your space. Customer flow often reveals patterns you can’t see through manual observation: where shoppers hesitate, which aisles draw them in and which areas they consistently walk past. These behaviors shape the shopping experience more than most retailers realize.

With behavioral insights from Research, you can identify which paths customers take most often, where congestion starts to build and how long people spend in specific zones. If shoppers routinely bypass a display near the entrance or cluster in tight aisles, you can adjust your layout to improve visibility and flow. If you’re testing a new floor plan or traffic pattern, analytics helps you validate whether it’s working.

As your understanding deepens, you can design your layout with greater intention. Small adjustments such as widening a high-traffic aisle, repositioning seasonal items or adjusting the angle of a display can make a noticeable difference in how customers move and how they experience your store. When you can clearly see how people navigate your space, you’re able to create an environment that supports both your business goals and your customers’ expectations.

Even small slowdowns can create frustration for shoppers, especially during busy periods when your team is already stretched thin. With Respond, you have real-time awareness of what’s happening across your store. Instead of discovering a long line after it forms or noticing a crowd only when a customer complains, you can set rules that trigger alerts the moment activity reaches a threshold that needs attention.

These real-time insights help you deploy staff where they’re needed most. If a checkout line starts growing, you can open another register right away. If a particular area becomes crowded or traffic shifts toward a different part of the store, your team can step in to redirect flow or offer support. This level of responsiveness reduces wait times and keeps the shopping experience smooth and stress-free.

Video analytics also helps you understand the operational patterns behind these moments. Through long-term data visualized in Research, you can see when and where bottlenecks repeatedly occur and identify the underlying causes: staffing gaps, layout limitations or seasonal fluctuations. With this visibility, you can prepare for busy times more effectively, schedule your team with greater accuracy and reduce the friction that slows customers down.

Merchandising often comes down to visibility; you invest time and effort into designing displays, but it’s hard to know which ones truly resonate with shoppers. Walking the floor can give you a snapshot, but it doesn’t capture the full picture of how engagement changes throughout the day. Research closes that gap by showing how customers interact with your merchandising choices, providing heatmaps and dwell insights that reveal which displays draw attention and which areas shoppers ignore.

These insights help you evaluate whether your merchandising strategy is working as intended. If a promo table near the front isn’t getting attention or a popular product is tucked into a low-visibility location, you can see that clearly in the data. Research also highlights strong performers: displays or zones that attract interest even without heavy promotion.

As patterns emerge, you can refine your approach with purpose. Maybe an end cap that looked promising isn’t converting or a secondary display is performing better than expected. Instead of relying on intuition alone, you can test new ideas, measure the impact and iterate quickly. This makes your merchandising decisions more efficient and more closely aligned with how customers actually shop.

When you manage more than one store, the challenge isn’t just understanding what’s happening in a single location: it’s seeing the bigger picture across all of them. Customer behavior, staffing needs, peak hours and layout performance can vary widely from one site to the next. Without a clear way to compare these patterns, it’s difficult to know which stores are excelling, which need support and where you should focus your efforts.

With multi-site dashboards in Research, you can bring that visibility together. By aggregating data across your entire portfolio, you can spot trends that aren’t obvious when looking at each store individually. You might find that certain layouts consistently support better flow, that one region experiences heavier morning traffic or that specific zones repeatedly become congestion points. These insights help you make decisions that account for both individual store needs and brand-wide patterns.

This level of intelligence lets you benchmark performance more accurately and share best practices across your organization. Stores that excel in customer engagement or operational efficiency can become models for others. Locations that struggle with staffing or layout can adjust based on proven behaviors. Over time, you build greater consistency across your brand and gain the strategic insight to plan growth, allocate resources and evaluate performance with confidence.

When you have clearer insight into what’s happening across your stores, everything from security to operations becomes easier to manage. With BriefCam, you gain a flexible foundation that strengthens loss prevention while giving you the long-term intelligence to improve operations and customer experience.

Ready to start putting your video to work? Contact us to learn how you can create an environment that’s secure, efficient and keeps customers coming back.