Shelf and brand monitoring at retail stores is an essential part of any CPG business. Otherwise, how can merchandising management know if their strategies are being properly executed?
Adopting a system for merchandising is the first step in achieving the oversight necessary to effectively monitor retail channel strategies. With a system for merchandising, management can streamline keeping track of merchandise sets and resets, promotions, etc, by customizing audit forms and capturing valuable information without having to go through the cumbersome activity of transcribing paper forms.
Additionally, a system for merchandising allows for capturing pictures, which are naturally more effective in communicating the actual reality of store shelves than checklists, however with the downfall that – differently than single/ multiple-choice or numeric answers – cannot be automatically quantified.
Recently, however, these systems for merchandising have evolved even further and now include artificial intelligence technologies that take store inspections to a whole new level. With image recognition for shelf and brand monitoring, the information contained in pictures can be automatically quantified into charts and reports.
This means that, as soon as reps take a picture at stores, image recognition for shelf monitoring will give managers at headquarters access to KPIs such as share of shelf, out-of-stocks, competitor information, among others.
BrandML is the image recognition for shelf monitoring technology developed by VisitBasis, provider of the namesake mobile system for merchandising adopted by many CPG manufacturers, distributors and agencies. While state-of-the-art, BrandML can be implemented in a short period of time and is cost-effective, making it a realistic technology upgrade for retail-focused businesses of all sizes.
