Retail
Smarter Stores. Safer People. Stronger Insights. In a rapidly changing, highly-competitive industry, providing both an effective security operation while optimising the customer experience is a demanding challenge for the modern retailer. In this article we explore how common problems are being overcome with the use of Concept Pro’s fully customisable Deep Learning Analytics.
Nov 20, 2025 • min read
Smarter Stores. Safer People. Stronger Insights.
From convenience shops to department stores, visibility is everything. Our intelligent video solutions give you the power to see, understand, and act—combining next-generation AI cameras, video recorders, analytics, and monitors to help you protect people, reduce shrinkage, and improve the retail experience across every site.
Retail environments demand constant awareness without constant attention. Our AI-driven cameras and recorders work together to detect real activity, filter out false alerts, and help you understand what’s really happening, so you can respond faster and manage smarter.
Best-Fit Products For Retail Environments
- Vandal Dome IP Cameras: Designed for discreet yet durable ceiling installation in high-traffic indoor areas like checkout counters, product aisles, and exteriors. Smoked dome options are available to obscure the monitoring angle. The CVP5325 series of cameras provides high-performance in a compact, fixed lens package.
- ColourSmart IP Cameras: Deliver clear, true-colour video 24/7, even in dim car parks or outdoor entrances, ideal for verifying activity after hours.
- DeterSmart IP Camera: Perfect for store entrances, rear exits, or high-theft zones. Flashing red/blue lights and audio warnings can automatically activate when motion or loitering is detected.
- Fisheye IP Camera: Provide seamless 360° coverage in open floor areas without visual blind spots using the CBP360-IP12M-2 fisheye camera.
- Professional Network Video Recorder: Record up to 16 channels in real-time 8-megapixel resolution. Apply Smart Storage Compression to automatically reduce bit rate to match the recording frame rate, to reduce storage costs and increase retention time. Utilise AI Search to quickly find an object of interest that triggered any configured AI video analytics events.
- Industry-leading VMS: Concept Pro is integrated with the Network Optix Nx Witness software platform, providing a scalable, professional VMS capable of satisfying any monitoring requirements.
Self-checkouts reduce overheads while creating a more frictionless shopping experience, but on the flip side many retailers have witnessed an associated, and unwelcome increase in stock shrinkage. But it needn’t be this way. Concept Pro uses loitering algorithms, set with specific parameters to identify non-interaction with the checkouts or trigger if a person is to walk through the area in a suspiciously low amount of time. Our software integration and people tagging enables security guards to be notified in real-time allowing them to confront individuals before they even leave the store.
Public View Monitors are a great extension to self-checkout areas and provide an excellent visual deterrence to display, in real time, to customers that they are being recorded as they scan their shopping. These monitors can display company logos, advertisements or any other media until a person is identified as approaching the self-checkout. Analytics can be utilised to display bounding boxes round the face of the shopper to further emphasise the visual deterrent.
“At first, I was sceptical about the introduction of analytics data being pushed into our retail portal. How wrong I was! Not only have we improved our customers’ instore experience, but we’ve increased sales and managed our staff so much better!“
"Concept Pro’s Head of Product Development, JP, explains how algorithms are being customized to overcome specific retail challenges
“In all our initial meetings with system integrators and retail end-users, there’s a lightbulb moment when they realize just how sophisticated AI has become, and how easily it can be integrated to overcome even the most complex of challenges. One notable example was when a large national retailer approached us, asking our team to identify the best location for new promotional locations. Despite years of experimenting with various areas instore, they’d struggled to identify the perfect spot for their promotions. But after working with our advanced heat mapping, dwell time, loitering rules and occupancy management tools, we were able to identify those key locations where footprint was at its optimum, allowing them to boost sales while making things easier for the customer. We were also able to deliver real-time data showing when checkouts were at their busiest, notifying management instantly that they needed to open another checkout.”
Deep Learning Plus – Unlock the Power of Video Analytics
With Deep Learning Plus algorithms you can unlock the true potential of a fully-integrated CCTV solution. With features such as face and mask detection, facial recognition, people counting, thermal human detection, PPE safety detection, license plate recognition, enhanced vehicle detection, active privacy masking, fallen persons, behavioural patterns and more. In fact there’s almost nothing Deep Learning Plus can’t do. Concept Pro’s industry-leading software has a comprehensive list of human and vehicle detection algorithms, perfect for false alarm filtering. But it’s designed to solve a multitude of retail challenges that go far beyond just false alarm filtering and human detection, its potential is limited by the imagination alone.
Our advanced suite of algorithms can be fully customized to suit your needs – for more information click here.
The Concept Pro AI Bridge supports a growing range of powerful, retail-focused AI apps that deliver actionable insights, including:
- People Counting / Zone Counting / Queue Management – Measure foot traffic, checkout wait times, and flow through aisles or displays.
- Heatmap / Advanced Heatmap – Identify high-traffic zones from floors to shelves to improve store layout and marketing placement.
- Intentional Body Gaze Detector – Understand customer engagement with promotional zones, high-value items or any part of the store layout.
- Hand & Foot Intrusion Detection – Detect a person interacting with designated merchandise or shelves with high-value products.
- Staff Exclusion People Counting – Ensure data accuracy by excluding staff from analytics.
- Aggressive Detection / Imminent Threat – Detect and alert on violent or aggressive incidents near tills or exits. Recognise staff posture indicating distress. Improve response time to de-escalate dangerous situations.
- Loitering Detection / Stay & Go – Identify potential theft or antisocial behaviour around shelves or entrances.
- Intrusion Detection / Virtual Fence – Protect after-hours zones such as stockrooms.
- Under-Age Detection – Monitor restricted product areas such as alcohol or vape displays.
Interested in Customizing your rules – here’s how the process works
We caught up with Debbie Carter, Business Development Manager at Concept Pro, to understand how the process works for customizing algorithms for retail solutions.
“Firstly, we hold a consultation meeting with new clients which can be face-to-face at Concept Pro locations across the UK, at your premises, or an end user venue. This is our opportunity to collectively develop a brief, based upon the specific project challenges and our identified solutions. Once we have fully scoped the project, we create a timeline that factors in each key development stage, including regular check-ins, itemized costings, and key stakeholder involvement. After each element of the plan is approved, by both integrator and end user, we move onto the development itself. Then we go through an in-depth testing process, something Concept Pro takes incredibly seriously and does diligently to ensure the very highest standards are met. Testing takes time, but our customers are updated regularly through project update meetings, and is determined by the complexities of the request. Concept Pro’s testing procedure is a carefully selected blend of internal testing at CP headquarters, and once approved by a CP technical expert, moves onto onsite testing, which will always involve a real end-user environment. Or if this isn’t possible, a proof-of-concept environment. Here is where we invite the integrator and end user to witness and sometimes participate in the real environment test. Once all stakeholders are happy we then release to the customer.”
