Lights, Camera, Nicotine!

CHICAGO -- If smoker’s weren’t nervous enough, video cameras in a number of convenience stores are tracking their every eye movement, finger point and path traveled while purchasing their favorite tobacco products, according to researchers at a recent CSP tobacco forum.

Speaking before about 70 people at CSP’s Total Nicotine Conference, Rajeev Sharma, founder and CEO of VideoMining, State College, Pa., said that through video analysis of 400,000 shoppers and 83 million shopping trips, they’ve identified key behaviors common among many tobacco customers.

Here are three big ones ...

One in three tobacco customers (31%) search and point to the tobacco product they want the cashier to get for them. Sharma said this action may be the result of poor merchandising or an employee who isn’t knowledgeable about the products. Most customers (64%), ask for their product verbally without pointing.

Tobacco is a destination product so purchases are highly mission-oriented, Sharma said, with 94% telling VideoMining via exit surveys that it’s a “highly planned” trip. Seventy percent of tobacco shoppers go directly to the checkout counter without browsing the store.

The average wait time for a tobacco customer, according to Sharma’s research, is 57 seconds. He said that oftentimes, tobacco customers allow people with one or two items to go ahead of them as they intend to engage the cashier. It’s an opportunity for communication to the customer either via displays at the checkout or a mobile app, he said.