Quite a lot, as Raphael Wein explains in this week’s episode.

This week on the Retail Risk – Podcast, Paul is joined by Raphael Wein, Director of Sales at Trigo.

Raphael’s career path is anything but conventional. Starting with a degree in political science, taking part in mock UN debates and working part-time in Parliament, you’d be forgiven for thinking he was destined for a life in politics.

Instead, he found himself at the forefront of retail technology, overseeing sales for Trigo’s autonomous store and next-generation loss prevention solutions across the UK and Europe.

In this fascinating conversation, Raphael explains how the same computer vision AI technology that powers the company’s checkout-free shopping experience is now helping retailers tackle shrink, boost sales, and improve store performance.

And if you think transforming a traditional store into a technology-enabled environment must be a huge undertaking, think again. Raphael shares how surprisingly straightforward it can be to retrofit existing stores, reflecting on Trigo’s landmark partnership with Tesco and the huge opportunities it’s creating for retailers.

Of course, no conversation about advanced computer vision and AI technology would be complete without discussing privacy.

Paul and Raphael tackle the topic head-on, exploring how Trigo’s systems are designed to track shoppers anonymously while remaining fully GDPR compliant. In fact, their commitment to customer privacy is so robust that, as one German retailer put it, CCTV footage is blurred to such an extent that even Angela Merkel wouldn’t have been recognisable in store!

With access to insights that have never previously been available at this scale, Raphael also reveals how retailers are beginning to understand customer journeys in entirely new ways, opening the door to smarter decision-making and more effective loss prevention.