摘要 |
A market research retail sales data collection system and method includes a plurality of cooperating retail stores, each having an in-store device (12) for automatically collecting, processing and storing market research data in a substantially totally passive or non-invasive manner with respect to the on-going operations of each retail store. Each in-store device includes a non-invasive store loop sensor assembly (14), a sensor interface (26), a store loop communications adapter (28), a central processing unit (3e), a random access memory (32), a processed data storage device (34), a power monitor (40) and a communications modem (36) for connecting the in-store device through a communications network to a central site (24) for subsequent use by market researchers. Each in-store device continuously monitors, detects, interprets, processes and stores retail sales transactions data from its retail store for subsequent periodical transmission to the central site. |