WHY SHOULD YOU UPGRADE YOUR MERCHANDISING SOLUTION?
Unexpected in-store activity has increased with changing consumer behavior, spurred by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and a rise in online shopping habits. This is pushing CPG companies to modernize their merchandising practices with AI solutions. StayinFront Digital’s Image Recognition Technology can improve the performance of everyone on your field team, enabling them to build the Perfect Store. Our CPG solutions help field reps save time performing store audits to focus more on carrying out various activities like building promotions, finding additional space in-store, developing relationships with store managers, and visiting additional stores on their routes.
Field reps may often find themselves not being able to work as efficiently as they would like to. This is especially the case if they are moving from store to store using manual methods to track shelf quality, slowing down the auditing process and limiting their performance. In addition to this, reps typically work full-time hours with fixed positions. This makes it difficult to juggle challenges that inevitably pop up, like addressing missing products on the shelf. Products need to be properly merchandized to catch the eyes of retail customers, and since reps only have a limited amount of time and pressures to move onto the next store, human error can decrease the accuracy of the data collected on shelf position and performance.
By taking a picture of the shelf, StayinFront Digital’s image recognition technology enables reps to gauge which products have a strong presence on the shelf instantly. Each image captured is quickly analyzed by StayinFront’s neural networks with over 96 percent accuracy, giving CPG companies an idea of how their products are performing on the shelf. Once image recognition results have populated the store audit, our Interactive Shelf solution creates a Realogram to highlight non-compliance issues on the shelf, positioning reps to have more meaningful conversations with retailers about how shelf space is used.
The time reps save by using image recognition is crucial to achieving their companies’ goals. In fact, our solution can save reps time by up to 50 percent. Using Machine Learning AI can also help field reps with their understanding of stores beyond their own products’ levels of success. By tracking share of shelf with Image Recognition technology, reps can also learn about what their competitors’ presence looks like to get an edge over them. Some examples of intel include competitor assortment, share of brand, price, promotions, and private label.
Our image recognition technology is in its most advanced form when combined with StayinFront RDI, signaling POS data on sales and inventory to guide reps from the back end. This data can be used to assign a Size of Prize (SOP) value to each store, from which Dynamic Routing is integrated to create the optimal driving route. This both decreases reps time on the road and increases profits for CPG companies.
StayinFront Digital’s technology is always evolving alongside the retail environment. Our latest innovation is our new Burst mode feature, speeding up the picture taking process for reps. We believe it’s integral for CPG companies to upgrade their merchandising solution to stay ahead of the competition.
Contact your local Retail Execution expert to find out more on how Image Recognition Technology can help you grow your business.
