Artificial Intelligence technology and deep learning algorithms are changing the present scenario of the retail industry. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence are helping to push the customer experience to the next level. Startups and enterprises are identifying the importance of AI in the current time.
This is the reason there is a huge contribution of Image Recognition and Object Detection in retail in the last few years. The retail sector is more projected to monitor product availability, variety, space, pricing, promotions, and many more.
AI is supporting in recognizing product status while utilizing Image Recognition and Object Detection. Many businesses in retail are applying smart solutions to track customers as the customers navigate the website or stores. Object tracking offers valuable business decisions while collecting crucial information. Especially, e-commerce businesses are collecting valuable customer data to cater to their customers’ individual needs.
Artificial Intelligence Solutions for Retail Industry :
Empowered with Image Recognition and Object Detection
To view how customers are navigating physical store image recognition and object detection offer retailers relevant data.
Employing AI-enabled solutions assist in getting the discern areas of the store that receive the most or least traffic. As a result, retailers can employ promotional displays and ads to push the sale of the respective product. Here is how artificial intelligence is integrated into the retail industry:
Supply chain management
Since artificial intelligence can deal with enormous amount of data to bring useful insights, it can be used to manage supply chain department. According to a report by Capgemini, AI deployments in various fields can help retailers to save up to $300 billion, which indicates the future of AI in retail.
Auditing Product Placement
These days CPG companies are investing in solutions to engage customers while taking important decisions at the store. AI is playing an important role in understanding the shelf conditions in the retail store.
With the Image Recognition techniques store retailers can analyze what parameter is affecting their sales. This supports boosting shelf management and creates planograms that are a crucial part of the ideal store strategy.
Planogram Irrelevance
Leveraging object detection in retail stores empowers productive strategies to take corrective actions and fix issues smartly. AI-enabled solutions in retail are trained to compare and identify gaps between the following shelf images. Programming done in the neural network with the reference planogram images easily get detected after a certain time frame.
Stock forecasting and eliminating overstocks
Artificial intelligence solutions can automatically update the systems with the available stock. They can also send alerts for refilling the stock. Retail owners can also leverage this technology to find underperforming products and avoid filling up their shelves with them. AI solutions for retail industry can also predict the likes and dislikes of customers in the upcoming time. Based on the output, retail owners can fill up their product catalogs. High-speed deliveries and reduced rate of return are the two other benefits AI renders to the retail industry.
Offering support
Using AI-powered chatbots, retailers can offer automated support services to their customers. Using pre-defined answers, the AI-enabled support systems will resolve the queries of multiple customers at the same time without any delay.
Fraud detection
AI solutions for retail industry can also help in ensuring complete digital retail security. To provide the same, it uses deep learning algorithms to determine any fraud or data breach during the online transactions a customer makes to purchase products.
Optimizing timing for sales, promotions, and discounts
Depending on various data available over the web, AI-powered solutions with the help of machine learning can figure out the best time to offer discounts, sales, and promotions. It can also help your retail business to understand targeted customers behavior to make you deliver a personalized shopping experience.
Identifying Empty Shelf
In retails, if the customer encounter the empty shelves can impact the sale in a savior manner. Many times the shelves remain empty, unidentified by the retailers.
It is witnessed that the consumers who tried to buy the fresh arrived product at a local store found out-of-stock impacted the customer experience. According to the study, a big retailer group faced the total loss of sales due to out of stock at nearly $1 trillion.
Thus, it becomes very important that the retailers and CPG firms need to ensure that the shelves remain stocked with the correct product. If the product gets out of stock the retailer should identify it.
The retailers can leverage Image Recognition and Object Detection using fixed cameras in their store to alert the store staff. The store staff can get an immediate alert on their phone whenever any shelf is found to be empty.
AI-enabled object detection solutions offer an accurate description of the product missing from the shelf with the exact shelf location, hence, acts as one of the effective AI solutions for retail Industry.
Read More: Role of AI in Mobile Field Services on day-to-day Operations
Evaluating Competition
As CPG and retail sector is huge, identifying competitors and tracking their in-store activity becomes important. Tracking the new launches of the competitor’s product and its promotional programs is advantageous in many ways.
With Object Detection algorithms it is easy to identify competitive activity in-store and spot group tendencies. It offers information on category sales for different brands in the market.
Using Image Recognition retailers can accurately capture the in-store activities of different brands that drive their sales.
As a result, it can help a CPG and retail brand to develop in its category by evaluating potential opportunities.
325,000 retailers will be using machine learning in some form by 2024
Artificial Intelligence use cases in retail
Considering the benefits of AI in retail 2020, several businesses have already adopted this technology in their processes and operations. Here are some of the real-life examples of AI in retail:
AI-powered chatbots or chat programs
Retail stores are using AI-powered chatbots to guide customers with different items available in the store along with their descriptions. These chatbots can act as a marketing representation and provide information on deals and discounts on various products. Moreover, chat software powered by AI also helps in increasing user engagement.
Virtual fitting rooms and AI-based mirrors
Top-level retail stores are using AI-based mirrors and virtual fitting rooms to allow customers to try different apparels without actually putting them on. This relieves the customers from the hassle of waiting in long queues to access fitting or trial rooms.
Last thoughts
Companies can leverage AI by analyzing the number of data sets comprising thousands of shelf images. To better monitor, the retail stores’ image recognition and object detection can cross-reference new launches and in-store promotions of their competitors. This improves planogram compliance by providing accurate stock visibility insights. Retail shelf monitoring helps in recognizing product conditions which leads to better in-store product placement and drives better sales.
