Short Pump Town Center Makes National Headlines with Plan to Track Holiday Shoppers’ Cell Phones

If you plan to head out for some Black Friday shopping this week at Short Pump Town Center, mall management may be watching your every move. It’s a story making national news, as this is a first-of-its-kind program being implemented by only one other US mall. And while management won’t be able to identify you individually, they’ll aggregately know shopping patterns.

November 22, 2011; 2:53 PM • by Trevor Dickerson

If you plan to head out for some Black Friday shopping this week at Short Pump Town Center, mall management may be watching your every move. It’s a story making national news, as this is a first-of-its-kind program being implemented by only one other US mall. And while management won’t be able to identify you individually, they’ll aggregately know shopping patterns.

Here’s how it works: suppose you visit Nordstom and then walk over to Tara Thai to grab some lunch. The mall’s system will be able to track your cell phone signal, along with other patrons, to identify patterns like this and others. How many shoppers who visit the Apple Store also visit Brookstone? How long do shoppers spend in a particular store? The technology will help retailers determine the answers to these types of questions and more from Black Friday through Christmas.

While the story is raising the eyebrows of privacy advocates nationwide, both the manufacturer of the unique tracking technology, British company Path Intellegence, and Short Pump’s management company claim there is no risk to individual privacy.

“We won’t be looking at singular shoppers,” said Stephanie Shriver-Engdahl, vice president of digital strategy for Short Pump Town Center’s management company, Forest City, in an interview with CNN. “The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to.”

Those wishing to opt out from the tracking program will need to turn their cell phones off, as this is the only way to do so.

No personally identifiable information will be revealed, and signs will be placed around the mall announcing the program to shoppers. ”We don’t need to know who it is and we don’t need to know anyone’s cell phone number, nor do we want that,” Shriver-Engdahl said.

Online retailers already track many aspects of your visit to their respective websites, and can determine both shopping patterns and what you buy, whether or not you buy an item and more. The brick-and-mortar shopper tracking device will not be able to track what you buy; only location information will be available.

Physical retailers have struggled to get this kind of information that online retailers enjoy. Path Intelligence’s slogan echoes this sentiment, claiming they’re “bringing online intelligence to the offline world.”

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November 22, 2011 2:53 PM 0