Knowing if a product is available at stores is of utmost concern for many managers at CPG companies: from merchandising to retail channel operations and from marketing to finance, many departments have their performance measured by how well revenue grows during a fiscal year. Product shortages or recurring stocking issues, however, can seriously affect revenues, especially because shoppers may switch brands because of these issues.
Platforms for retail execution have opened the door for real-time store information to be available to managers at headquarters. Merchandisers and field reps can just fill in forms and checklists on smartphones and tablets and the information is immediately synchronized with the Cloud, where managers use the data to generate reports.
A more recent upgrade to platforms for retail execution, however, is image recognition. With image recognition, data that was previously unquantifiable can now be automatically translated into table reports and charts. From a shelf picture, for instance, data on product on-shelf availability and share of shelf can be extracted.
When it comes to image recognition, BrandML offers a high-tech yet easy-to-implement alternative. BrandML is the image recognition technology from VisitBasis, developer of the namesake platform for retail execution.
BrandML works by training a neural network to identify the client’s product on store shelves. Once this training is done, all reps need to do is take pictures of product shelves at stores and management will be able to generate reports on product and brand KPIs using our platform for retail execution that can help better strategize on product on-shelf availability solutions.
