Every smartphone these days is equipped with ways to connect to WiFi. When your phone is looking for networks to join, it’s detectable by local routers. In a retail store, there’s often additional equipment that can detect your phone’s WiFi capabilities, note your device’s unique ID number, and track your device over time as you move through the store.

Retail stores can use this technology to determine the flow of customer foot traffic, analyse conversion rates, and research dwell times in the stores. They can then use what they’ve learned to plan and reconfigure store layouts and merchandise displays in order to better attract and retain shoppers, thereby boosting sales and customer loyalty.

In general, no personally identifiable information can be gathered this way. But, just like with any type of semi-anonymous metadata, it’s possible to cross-reference the data that is gathered with other forms of public or commercial information. The resulting profiles can help businesses build detailed personas of their customers, even if the customers themselves remain anonymous. Click here to continue reading the article.