Watching as you shop

摘要

Retailing: Big shops are using elaborate technology to monitor and influence the behaviour of their customers In A recent British television commercial, John McEnroe, a veteran tennis star, is seen racing his long-time rival Bjorn Borg around a Tesco supermarket. After arriving in the checkout queue just ahead of his opponent, Mr McEnroe is distraught to see an employee appear and open another till, giving Mr Borg the upper hand. The advertisment ends with a reference to Tesco's "one in front" initiative, which aims to reduce waiting times by opening additional tills whenever there is more than one customer waiting at a checkout. This scheme has been running for many years, but Tesco recently updated it by investing in customer-monitoring technology supplied by Irisys, a British company.