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It’s hard to keep up.

But keeping products on shelf keeps customers happy and profits in the bank.

PART ONE:
THE HARSH REALITY
PART ONE:
THE HARSH REALITY

Expectation

People love shopping in-store where they get a chance to feel the product for themselves and ask associates any burning questions.

If it feels good and the price works, they bring it home with a smile. Simple as that.

But sometimes...

The product isn’t on the shelf.
It's not where it's supposed to be.
The promo isn’t marked.
Associates are too busy to help.

And all too often, customers leave empty-handed, frustrated and end up buying the product online in the parking lot.*

* It’s no joke. According to the IHL Group, over 24% of Amazon’s current retail revenue comes from customers who first tried to buy the product in-store.
PART TWO:
IMPACT ON RETAILERS
PART TWO:
IMPACT ON RETAILERS

It’s an alarming figure, but one in ten products is not on shelves when it should be. And depending on the store-type, shoppers encounter out-of-stocks pretty often:

SWIPE
20%

OF SHOPPING TRIPS AT
GROCERY/DRUG STORES
EXPERIENCE OUT-OF-STOCK

25%

OF SHOPPING TRIPS AT
DEPARTMENT STORES
EXPERIENCE OUT-OF-STOCK

33%

OF SHOPPING TRIPS AT
ELECTRONICS
EXPERIENCE OUT-OF-STOCK

Annual, global retail loss due to out-of-stock and empty shelves:

$448B
THE SIMBE SOLUTION
1.

Tally knows when products are in the wrong aisle or on the wrong shelf.

2.

Tally knows when you have inventory in the back to prioritize restocking.

3.

Tally knows when a product is out on shelf or missing facings, and alerts you to restock.

4.

Tally helps identify the root cause when products are not present on shelf.

PART THREE:
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
PART THREE:
THE PRICE IS RIGHT

Promotions can draw customers and increase sales, but also open you to risk and loss if not managed carefully.

Recent studies have shown as much as 2 out of 10 promos are priced incorrectly. To make matters worse, 70% of stores measure execution and compliance “less than monthly” to “never.”

HOW OFTEN DO BRICK AND MORTAR STORES MEASURE FOR MERCHANDISING EXECUTION AND COMPLIANCE?

11.1%

DAILY

18.5%

WEEKLY

29.6%

MONTHLY

22.3%

A FEW TIMES PER YEAR

18.5%

NEVER

RIS News 2013

11.1%

DAILY

18.5%

WEEKLY

29.6%

MONTHLY

22.3%

A FEW TIMES PER YEAR

18.5%

NEVER

Annual, global retail losses due to lack of performance optimization

$472B
THE SIMBE SOLUTION
1.

Simbe ensures your pricing is visible and accurate, especially for promos.

2.

Simbe confirms your merchandising is updated to comply with promotional campaigns.

3.

Simbe knows which shelves are most effective, and keeps them stocked with high-margin SKUs.

4.

Simbe helps retailers align with HQ and brand planograms.

PART FOUR:
AN EXPENSIVE SAFETY NET
PART FOUR:
AN EXPENSIVE SAFETY NET

To avoid out-of-stock situations retailers keep extra inventory in a process known as safety-stocking. Safety stock requires capital. Lots of it.

Dollars that global retailers have tied up in additional safety stocks:

$24.2B
THE SIMBE SOLUTION
1.

Accurate sales forecasting means lower safety stocks.

2.

Simbe knows when to distribute inventory from slow-moving shelves to fast ones.

3.

If one of a product’s many facings isn’t moving, Simbe knows to put another SKU in that real estate.

PART FIVE:
THE ALTERNATIVES
PART FIVE:
THE ALTERNATIVES

Other solutions fall dreadfully short.

MANUAL AUDITS
MANUAL IMAGE CAPTURE AUDITS
FIXED CAMERAS
SAFETY STOCKS
AI FORECASTING
COVERAGE
The (aspirational) industry standard tends to be for weekly audits. And that is only for limited portions of the store. Thanks to human error, stores are looking at 65% accuracy on average.
COST
It can take 20 human hours to audit 10k UPCs—to the tune of $2k per audit. Not to mention the unmeasurable cost of saddling associates with mundane tasks that keep them from helping customers.
VERDICT
It’s the default. The status quo. But it’s not consistent or accurate enough to lead to valuable forecasting, which is a huge opportunity lost.
COVERAGE
Depends entirely on when associates or brand managers can photograph shelves with their phones. Photographs offer better accuracy, but the limited coverage cancels it out.
COST
Snapping photos still requires lots of human hours. Plus, now you're paying a vendor to decipher incomplete, infrequent, and sporadic information.
VERDICT
Photographs are helpful, but there is still too much reliance on humans.
COVERAGE
Cart-mounted cameras travel with shoppers, which are unreliable at best. Getting proper coverage involves an extremely dense network of cameras, all of which need to have power and connectivity.
COST
No human hours needed. But hardware can cost a fortune.
VERDICT
Cart- or shelf-mounted cameras are expensive—not to mention easily broken or stolen. Outfitting an entire store would require a massive investment in hardware and maintenance.
COVERAGE
Stores can buy extra of whatever they think will sell the fastest. Accuracy depends entirely on how well you’ve read the trends and forecasted behavior. It’s a guessing game.
COST
Over 24.2 Billion dollars are tied up in safety stocks at any given time across the industry. Companies lose millions each year on poorly forecasted stocking.
VERDICT
It’s a safety net. But to make it big enough means you’re taking big risks and tying up capital.
COVERAGE
Forecasting is based on supply chain and POS data. You are completely blind to an empty shelf, product placement, pricing or shelf optimization.
COST
The investment is small, but so is the return. What good is data that you ultimately cannot trust?
VERDICT
It’s a nice thought, but isn't insightful enough to solve the mission-critical problems.

Tally is Ready.
Today.

Tally is Ready.
Today.

We know this sounds like science-fiction. Thanks to sensor, artificial intelligence and navigational technologies, this science is reality.

Tally is a power tool for your team. It lets them deliver a better experience for your customers and a better bottom line for your business.  

PART SIX:
THE BURDEN ON BRANDS
PART SIX:
THE BURDEN ON BRANDS

Brands spend a lot of money on promotions, end-caps, placements and related marketing. They spend even more for sample audits in a limited number of stores to ensure those efforts are executed to plan. Often, that audit data is outdated before a report is ever generated.

And what’s more, once a problem is queued to be fixed, it will still take time to learn if that fix has occured. There are simply too many steps between data, action, and confirmation. The most common obstacles:

WHAT CHALLENGES PREVENT YOUR ORGANIZATION FROM GETTING STORES TO BE FULLY COMPLIANT WITH MERCHANDISING CAMPAIGNS?

53.2%

Disconnect between merchandising, marketing and store ops

53.2%

Disconnect between merchandising, marketing and store ops

34.6%

Increasing pace of change

34.6%

Increasing pace of change

30.8%

Labor limitations

30.8%

Labor limitations

23.1%

Current process won’t scale

23.1%

Current process won’t scale

23.1%

Poor cooperation merchandising < > marketing

23.1%

Poor cooperation merchandising < > marketing

23.1%

Lack of common inventory across channels

23.1%

Lack of common inventory across channels

19.2%

Limited by using Excel spreadsheets

19.2%

Limited by using Excel spreadsheets

15.4%

No real-time inventory visibility

15.4%

No real-time inventory visibility

15.4%

Data integration limitations

15.4%

Data integration limitations

RIS News 2013

In this survey of retailers, more than half of respondents believe non-compliance leads to 4-15% loss in annual sales:

WHAT IS THE ESTIMATED PERCENTAGE OF LOST ANNUAL SALES DUE TO NON-COMPLIANCE OF IN-STORE MERCHANDISING?

11%

LESS THAN 1% LOST SALES

37%

BETWEEN 1–3% LOST SALES

14.8%

BETWEEN 4–5% LOST SALES

33.3%

BETWEEN 9-14% LOST SALES

3.7%

MORE THAN 15% IN LOST SALES

RIS News 2013

11%

LESS THAN 1% LOST SALES

37%

BETWEEN 1–3% LOST SALES

14.8%

BETWEEN 4–5% LOST SALES

33.3%

BETWEEN 9-14% LOST SALES

3.7%

MORE THAN 15% IN LOST SALES

THE SIMBE SOLUTION
SWIPE
Compliance

1.
Tally performs store audits up to 3x a day. It sends reports at a store-by-store level in real-time to brand managers and compliance leads.”

2.
Tally’s capture technology stores a visual compliance log in the cloud for easy reference.

Promotions

1.
Marketing leads can test campaigns in less expensive markets before pushing them to a wider audience.

2.
Conduct A/B tests to see if end caps are a wise investment.

3.
Optimize performance by testing against media weights, different merchandising, different pricing, in different geographies.

Retail nirvana

Through the power of robotics and machine learning, Simbe is helping retailers increase visibility and respond on the fly.

On average, we’re seeing a 25% lift on profits with existing customers—not to mention the incremental revenue from CPG brands who crave the real-time, detailed data we provide.

Retailers and brands can analyze the data. Make smart decisions. Increase margins. And create an experience that meets the needs of customers.

What does it take?
View our FAQ