ShopAssist - A Unified Location-Aware System for Shopping

Indoor location can be of great assistance to shoppers: it enables them to find products, navigate around a large store or receive location specific promotions. Business owners also benefit from the collection of location data and movement patterns, as well as the potential for increased revenue and customer engagement by communicating with the user while in the shop. However, so far the lack of ubiquitous indoor location and the creation of brand specific apps has hindered the adoption of indoor location-aware shopping applications as users must install a different app for every shop. Furthermore, the development cost has kept smaller stores from being able to provide these apps. This paper presents ShopAssist, a multi-store location-aware application that adapts to the store currently being visited. ShopAssist relies on Bluetooth Low Power to identify the store being visited and perform indoor localization. ShopAssist makes use of a Content Management System (CMS), used by the store owner to upload information, and is capable of interacting with Digital Signage in order to display targeted advertisements in the store. Tests were performed in different scenarios to evaluate the accuracy of the system. Likewise, load tests were carried out to assess the server's performance, and user tests were conducted to gauge the system's acceptance.