Surging inflation and softening consumer demand are hitting retailers with a one-two punch, threatening profitability and long-term viability. However, retailers have a secret weapon in their fight for profitability that offers hope of navigating challenging conditions. That secret weapon is AI. It is transforming retail environments and has the potential to revolutionize businesses in ways that dramatically increase productivity, reduce costs and facilitate success in today’s high-pressure economic environment.
At Telaid, we’re working to bring agility to the retail industry with an ecosystem of partners that, together, offer powerful, high performance AI and computer vision solutions. We’re dedicated to advancing the use of AI in retail. We strive to deliver innovative use cases, game-changing operations and true business transformation.
On our journey thus far, we’re seeing some amazing results. Here are seven ways Vision AI saves you money.
- Improved inventory accuracy – Missing or misplaced inventory is detrimental to successful omnichannel retailing. Costly inventory may be permanently misplaced, resulting in bottom-line losses, or may not be available for purchase by a willing consumer. It may also lead to a poor customer experience if a shopper identifies a particular item online and visits the store to find that item out of stock. Using the latest geo-location technology coupled with AI, retailers leave nothing to chance and can track specific location down to the item-level for precise, real-time inventory management.
- Labor savings – AI enables frictionless checkout, administers automated customer assistance and delivers helpful data to employees as they serve customers. This unburdens already heavily taxed employees so they can focus on strategic tasks. In some cases, AI may eliminate the need for employees in certain areas of the store, such as manual device monitoring or traditional checkout.
- Accurate demand forecasting – For one major retailer, AI improved demand forecast accuracy from 94% to 97%, representing hundreds of millions of dollars across thousands of locations.* As just one example, forecasting eliminated $100M in perishable food waste through accurate forecasting.*
- Meaningful customer offers – Using purchase history data and insights from thousands of customers, AI can deliver on-target recommendations that appeal to customers and are likely to drive impulse purchases. AI can also inform in-store merchandising plans to optimize engagement and increase revenue per checkout. One retail apparel chain reported a 30% increase in sales revenue due to precision merchandising informed by AI.*
- Reduced shrink – Fraud at the self-checkout costs retailers an estimated $3 billion, according to Loss Prevention Magazine. Some losses are perpetrated intentionally, but other times the customer simply mis-scans an item or inputs an incorrect PLU code. Vision AI at the self-checkout can detect and prevent both kinds of loss: intentional and unintentional.
- Dynamic price optimization – The trend of adjusting prices based on internal and external factors from demand to costs, customer behaviors and level of appeal is catching on in all segments of retail. Previously the domain of airlines and hospitality venues, dynamic pricing is taking retail by storm. AI informs pricing decisions based on real-time information, historical data and customer buying patterns, allowing retailers to maximize profits in specific situations.
- Last mile route optimization – According to a Cap Gemini study, 98% of consumers say delivery is important to brand loyalty. AI delivers accurate order preparation time, optimized routes and projected schedules that optimize resources, reduce wait times and manage expectations in real time.
When you’re ready to inject your retail or QSR operation with the agility afforded by AI solutions, Telaid can work together with our best-of-breed partners to design and deploy a solution that achieves your objectives. With a stable of thoroughly vetted software and solution providers, together we can slash costs and gain efficiencies that put your operation on the path to a profitable era of retailing, no matter the market conditions.
*Data source: NVIDIA