How retailers are watching shoppers’ emotions

FOR eight months up to this April, a French bookstore chain had video in a Paris shop fed to software that scrutinises shoppers’ movements and facial expressions for surprise, dissatisfaction, confusion or hesitation. When a shopper walked to the end of an aisle only to return with a frown to a bookshelf, the software discreetly messaged clerks, who went to help. Sales rose by a tenth.

The bookseller wants to keep its name quiet for now. Other French clients of the Paris startup behind the technology, Angus.ai, are testing it in research shops that are not open to the public. They include Aéroports de Paris, an airport owner; LVMH, a luxury conglomerate; and Carrefour, a chain of hypermarkets. In a test at a Mothercare shop in Tallinn, Estonia, software from Realeyes, an emotion-detection firm based in London, showed that shoppers who entered smiling spent a third more than others.

Simple video yields a lot of...