Alza.cz is measuring customer interest in Hungary with the help of Adastra’s IoT scenarios

The largest Czech e-shop, Alza.cz, has made progress in its expansion to the Hungarian market. Previously, Alza.cz only had a distribution center in Hungary, but it has now opened its first local showroom. In size, this is comparable to the company’s headquarters in Prague’s Holesovice (approximately 5000 m2), and products from global brands are on display. The showroom boasts state-of-the-art technologies, such as IoT (the Internet of Things), that help the store deliver hard data for managerial decisions.  

“We’re predominantly an e-shop, so we’re used to seeing every aspect of customer behavior in the system. We just have to say what we’re interested in, and the data is available. In retail, however, we began quite blind in this regard, and so we’re looking for ways to get back to a greater level of awareness. This is the only way you can offer customers services and products that reflect their expectations,” says Jan Moudřík, director of expansion at Alza.cz.

Visitors to the showroom encounter the IoT solution in the so-called Experience Zone, which exhibits products from Microsoft and HP. Here, customers are presented with displays showing personalized ads from both companies. These are interactive screens that recognize the customer’s age and gender and offer him or her appropriate advertisements, from computer games for children or laptops for students to printers for holiday photographs. Visitors are identified using Azure cognitive services.

A pair of 3D cameras connected to a so-called multisensor counts how many times people cross virtual lines and measures the time visitors spend in the zone. They distinguish between time spent at HP’s exhibits and at Microsoft’s. The cameras also monitor how people move around the space. The output reveals the most common trajectories and heatmaps that identify where customers usually stay.