RetailNext is two things bolted together: an entrance-sensor analytics platform for traffic and merchandising, and an asset protection module that reads the cameras a store already has. Most teams only want to move the second one. This is the plan for doing that, what changes on day one and how to keep every store covered while it happens.
RetailNext runs an entrance sensor for counting and a module that reads the cameras already installed. The switch is about the second half. Both rows describe what each vendor publishes.
Four moments when retail teams running an analytics-led platform start this conversation. If none of them are true, staying put is a reasonable answer.
RetailNext prices a subscription that bundles Aurora hardware sensors, full platform access, licensing and updates, and it scales by store count, entrances per store, store type and region. That is a sensible shape if traffic and merchandising are the reason you bought. It is an expensive shape if the module the loss prevention team actually uses is the one reading your existing cameras.
RetailNext publishes up to 30 days of high-resolution color video in its cloud. Organized retail crime cases, insurance claims and civil recovery routinely run past that. Check the window against how long your own cases stay open, because retention that expires mid-case is a program constraint rather than a technical detail.
RetailNext documents real-time alerts, POS exception reporting and searchable case files, and it publishes up to 75% faster investigation. All of that is after the fact by design: it makes the case easier to build. What is not publicly specified is any on-site response at the moment of a detection, which is the part that matters when the store is closed.
The published scope is shopper behavior, merchandising and asset protection. When EHS asks about spills and blocked exits, or operations asks why one store's opening routine runs 20 minutes long, those questions are outside it. Adding a second video vendor to answer them is the moment to ask whether one platform could carry both.
The structural differences that decide whether a switch is worth starting.
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
RetailNext data comes from RetailNext's own public product, pricing and platform pages, read August 2026. Where RetailNext publishes nothing, this table says so rather than guessing.
A rollout that keeps coverage live throughout. Most sites go live inside six weeks.
Split the platform in two before anything else, because the two halves have different answers. On one side, the Aurora sensors at the entrances and the traffic and merchandising analytics they feed. On the other, the asset protection module reading your existing analog and IP cameras. Inventory the second one per store: which cameras it watches, which POS and alarm integrations are wired to it and which open cases still need footage out of the 30-day window.
Run one store on both at once for a fortnight. RetailNext keeps counting and keeps alerting while Spot AI reads the same cameras, so nothing is switched off to run the comparison. Pick a store where the loss number is stubborn and include the stockroom and the back door, because those are the areas an entrance-anchored platform was never pointed at and where a fair test will show a difference.
Move store by store, and only the video side. RetailNext keeps running at each store until its replacement has done a full week, the Aurora sensors stay exactly where they are and the cameras never move, so a cutover is a configuration change plus an IVR. Decide deliberately whether the traffic and merchandising subscription continues, because that is a separate commercial conversation from the one about video.
Once asset protection is stable, the work moves to what the old scope excluded. Add the safety and operations agents on the same feeds, build an Iris detection for something specific to your format and set what fires on site when the store is closed rather than waiting for an investigator to open a case file the next morning.
The six that come up in every one of these conversations.
Most switches start before the contract ends, because assess and pilot cost little and the comparison is more honest with both live. Run the pilot on one store during the overlap and time the chain-wide cutover to the renewal. The bundled subscription makes the timing question sharper than usual, so get the renewal date and the notice period in writing during assess.
Then keep it. That is the honest answer and it is why this plan separates the two halves in the first phase. Aurora sensors count people at the entrance and Spot AI does not replace that job. Moving video and asset protection onto a platform that also carries safety and operations does not require giving up a counting program that works.
No, and the plan makes that structural rather than a promise. RetailNext keeps alerting at each store until its replacement has run a full week, the cameras never move and stores cut over one at a time. If a store fails its sign-off test, that store stays where it is while the others proceed.
The video sits in the RetailNext cloud under the published window of up to 30 days and does not migrate. Export the footage attached to open cases, claims and recoveries during the assess phase, and get the case-file export format confirmed in writing while the subscription is still live, because both close with the contract rather than with the cutover.
That cost is real and worth naming. The offset is that the workflow being replaced is mostly the one nobody enjoyed: search in plain English removes the scrubbing that case building required. Budget the full fortnight of pilot overlap so the loss prevention team compares both on their own store rather than on a demo.
It depends on which half you are buying, and anyone answering without that split is guessing. RetailNext quotes a bundle that scales with stores and entrances. Quote both against the identical store list, state plainly whether the traffic program continues and count the vendors you would still need on each side.
Bring a camera list and we will tell you what works as it is.
Customer-reported outcomes from named Spot AI customers.
Staccato went from first conversation to full deployment across an 800-acre campus in seven weeks, on the camera infrastructure it already had.
Bridge33 Capital standardized video across 25 plus properties, each acquisition arriving with a different camera system, and cut footage search from hours to minutes.
The YMCA of Greater Richmond deployed 17 locations in two weeks and standardized retention across the estate.
"Within four minutes of the alarm going off, Spot AI gave us video footage of the incident on the responding officers' phones. We had five recoveries within the hour."
No. RetailNext states its asset protection module is compatible with existing analog and IP camera infrastructure, and Spot AI is camera agnostic in the same way: any IP camera speaking ONVIF or RTSP works as it is, with legacy analog coming in through the Intelligent Video Recorder. Nothing on the wall moves.
No. Aurora is a ceiling-mounted PoE unit that RetailNext designs and manufactures for people counting and behavioral analytics, and it does not depend on your other cameras. If traffic and merchandising data is still worth paying for, the sensors stay and this plan only moves the video and asset protection side.
Most estates are live inside six weeks: a week to assess and split the two halves, a fortnight of pilot on one store, then store-by-store cutover. Stores go live individually rather than in a single chain-wide switch, so the timeline scales with store count rather than camera count.
It stays in the RetailNext cloud under the retention you bought, published as up to 30 days of high-resolution color video, and it does not transfer. Anything attached to an open case or a legal hold should be exported before the subscription lapses, which makes that export list a deliverable of the assess phase.
Center of gravity. RetailNext is built around the entrance sensor and shopper analytics, with asset protection alongside and video in its cloud. Spot AI is built around the cameras already in the store, with 15+ pre-trained agents spanning security, safety and operations, active deterrence through standard speakers and full-resolution video staying on the Intelligent Video Recorder.