Beyond Pilots: Why Store Intelligence Must Become Infrastructure

From fragmented fixes to strategic transformation

Retail’s digital transformation is well underway—but for many, it still stops at the store’s front door.

Despite promising pilots, rising budgets, and mounting pressure to modernize, only 20% of retailers have fully scaled their store intelligence solutions, according to The State of In-Store Retailing 2025. That means 80% are still stuck in test-and-learn mode—missing out on what is now retail’s most urgent source of strategic advantage.

So what’s holding them back?

The Missing Layer: Ground Truth

Retailers aren’t short on data. They’ve invested heavily in supply chain platforms, ERP systems, POS, and e-commerce. But many still lack one critical layer: real-time, trusted visibility into what’s actually happening in their stores.

It’s not about having more data—it’s about having the right data at the right level of fidelity.

The kind of data that answers simple, essential questions:

• Is the product in stock?
• Is it in the right place?
• Is it priced correctly?
• Is the promotion live and accurate?

These aren’t just store-level questions—they’re business-critical inputs to pricing, merchandising, fulfillment, and financial planning. And without reliable answers, even the best systems and strategies are operating with blind spots.

We call this ground truth—and it’s the connective tissue between the shelf, the supply chain, and the shopper.

When retailers have real-time visibility into shelf conditions, they can:

• Sync digital listings with physical availability
• Trigger replenishment before stockouts happen
• Validate promotion execution and pricing in hours, not days
• Strengthen supplier collaboration with shared shelf data

This is more than operational hygiene. It’s the foundation for delivering on the promises made to shoppers, partners, and shareholders alike.

The Real Cost of Inaction

The disconnect between intent and execution shows up everywhere:

• Store teams waste hours on manual inventory checks that still miss gaps.
• HQ teams make merchandising and pricing decisions with stale or incomplete data.
• Suppliers lose confidence when planograms and promotions don’t play out in-store.
• Omnichannel teams scramble to reconcile online listings with real shelf conditions.

And it doesn’t stop there. These gaps roll up to the top:

• Revenue growth stalls as out-of-stocks drive shoppers to competitors.
• Customer loyalty erodes when shoppers don’t get what they came for.
• Margins suffer as inefficiencies compound across labor, inventory, and shrink.

This isn’t a store problem—it’s the single biggest blocker to the transformation leadership teams are trying to drive.

Simbe POV: From Pilots to Platform

At Simbe, we’ve worked with global retailers who’ve moved beyond initial use cases and begun treating store intelligence as a core capability—embedded in their tech stack, operational playbook, and transformation roadmap.

The difference? These retailers didn’t just buy technology—they adopted the mindset.

Here’s what we’ve seen work:

• Start with shelf truth: Price, availability, and product location are the data foundations for every other system
• Align across orgs: IT, supply chain, ops, and merchandising must move together—not in silos
• Design for orchestration: Every new store isn’t a separate deployment—it’s another node in a connected intelligence network.

Because when every team sees the same store, they can act in sync—and act fast.

From Reactive Fixes to Strategic Muscle

The goal isn’t to digitize audits. The goal is to unlock a new way of working—where store data flows in real time, where decisions are coordinated, and where retailers can execute with precision at scale.

This is how retail leaders reclaim margin, win loyalty, and modernize their operating models without starting from scratch.

The most forward-looking teams aren’t asking, “Should we scale?” Instead, they’re asking, “How fast can we make this infrastructure?”

→ Download the full report: The State of In-Store Retailing 2025

→ Read Blog 1: Retail’s $162.7B Blind Spot—And Why It’s Getting Bigger

→ Stay tuned for Blog 3: “From Ground Truth to Growth—The Future of Retail Starts at the Shelf”