This article presents some case studies from the retail context, and the major issues that have been addressed during the development of retail systems are outlined. The case studies address analysis of the problem, targeting solutions, and evaluation of effectiveness. The authors argue that lessons from the retail sector give clearer focus to the requirements that should be met by many policing applications. These include the importance of being able to integrate data gathering with other routine operations, to retrieve information from other data records, to retain flexibility in the use of incident labels, to have access to comprehensive geographic and situational data, and to incorporate criteria for prioritizing resource allocation. Above all, in both retail and policing contexts, there is a need to encourage the contribution of data through increasing "ownership," and particularly by providing wide access to analysis facilities. 1 figure, 1 table, and 15 references