Patent ID: 8325036

Claim:
A method for monitoring the stock level of an item at a location of a retail facility, comprising: receiving video of a product location in a retail facility, the video being captured by a video monitoring device with a field of view that includes the product location; providing a threshold stock value that corresponds to a minimum acceptable stock level of an item located in the product location; detecting an item removal event by analyzing, with a computing device, the video of the product location, the item removal event being detected when an item has been removed from the product location; in response to detection of an item removal event, adjusting, with a computing device, an in stock value corresponding to the stock level of the item located in the product location; comparing the in stock value to the threshold stock value; generating a low-stock alarm notification, with a computing device, if the in stock value is less than the threshold stock value, the low-stock alarm notification including an image of the product location at substantially the same time as the low-stock alarm notification is generated; identifying one or more user devices to receive the low-stock alarm notification, the user devices located remotely from the computing device, wherein identifying one or more user devices includes determining the user devices that are located in closest proximity to the product location; and distributing the low-stock alarm notification to the identified one or more user devices.