From Ground Truth to Growth: The Future of Retail Starts at the Shelf

How real-time shelf intelligence becomes a growth engine

Retail’s next chapter won’t be won through isolated innovation. It will be powered by orchestration—the ability to align systems, teams, and channels around real-time, trusted data. And increasingly, that orchestration starts on the shelf.

We’ve digitized nearly every aspect of commerce. But the store—where nearly 80% of retail sales still happen—has remained one of the most under-instrumented, overrelied upon environments in the entire enterprise.

Until now.

The Shelf Is No Longer Static… It’s Strategic

As retailers look to drive margin, reduce waste, and deliver a consistent shopper experience across channels, the shelf is emerging as the new data foundation.

Why? Because it reflects everything the business needs to know:

• What’s selling and what’s not
• Where execution is breaking down
• Where pricing, promotions, or planograms aren’t aligned
• What’s available for pick, pack, and fulfillment—right now

When shelf data is trusted and real-time, it powers smarter decisions across pricing, labor, supply chain, e-commerce, and more.

What’s Changing Now

According to The State of In-Store Retailing 2025:

• 90% of retailers who invested in store intelligence last year met or exceeded their ROI targets
• Planned investment is up 151% year-over-year
• Leading retailers are now treating store intelligence as a system of record, not just a stopgap solution

They’re not chasing innovation for its own sake. They’re modernizing their operating models, starting with what’s on the shelf.

Simbe POV: Orchestration Starts Here

At Simbe, we believe inventory data will soon be as foundational as POS data. Our Store Intelligence™ platform doesn’t just scan shelves—it connects pricing, availability, location, and promotion data across every store, in real time.

That data then flows into:

• E-commerce systems to improve pick accuracy and reduce substitutions
• Replenishment and allocation to prevent out-of-stocks
• Merchandising tools to validate promotions and planograms
• Workforce tools to reallocate labor from checks to service

And unlike traditional tools, Simbe’s platform is:

• Multimodal: Combining robotics, RFID, fixed sensors, and computer vision
• Retail-native: Designed for busy, dynamic environments
• Scalable: Deployed across multiple continents and retail formats
• Adopted: Trusted by associates, not disruptive to them

The Path Forward: Scale, Not Just Success

Too many technologies work in one pilot, in one store, under one set of conditions. The real test is distributed intelligence—can the solution improve execution across hundreds or thousands of locations? Can it scale with your business?

That’s the standard Simbe was built for.

• Every new store isn’t a deployment—it’s a node in a real-time network.
• Every scan is a signal that powers smarter action.
• Every insight flows directly into operational performance.

The Bottom Line

If retail is to meet the expectations of today’s shopper—and the complexity of today’s operating environment—it needs more than reactive tech. It needs a new infrastructure layer. And that layer starts with what’s on the shelf.

Ground truth fuels margin. It drives loyalty. And it powers growth.

Retail’s future is happening in real time, and it’s already on the store floor.

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

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

→ Revisit Blog 2: Beyond Pilots—Why Store Intelligence Must Become Infrastructure