Closing Retail’s Execution Gap: How Merchants Can Deliver Excellence and Maximize On Shelf Availability

The Merchandising Mandate

In retail, every decision ultimately converges on the shelf. Merchant teams shape product placement, supplier strategy, and shopper experience all of which directly drive sales and loyalty. Yet, they’ve often had to work with incomplete, outdated, or anecdotal insights about what’s actually happening in the store, on the shelf, and across the chain.

The stakes are high: Coresight Research estimates U.S. retailers lose $162.7 billion annually to in-store inefficiencies. Shopper surveys underscore that shoppers’ top frustrations are out-of-stocks and pricing errors, eroding trust even when overall satisfaction is high. Add to this that planogram compliance averages just 60% and declines each week, costing retailers up to 1% of sales.

Retailers are leaving money on the shelf.

While merchants sit at the intersection of strategy and execution, the tools to connect those dots have been lacking. That’s why at Simbe, we’ve expanded our Store Intelligence™ platform beyond operations into specialized, team-specific solutions starting with merchandising.

The New Reality: Merchandising Under Pressure

For decades, technology investments in retail have focused on supply chain, as well as point of sale and e-commerce. But inside the store, where the buying decision actually happens, visibility has lagged. Despite being a critical part of the omnichannel experience, incomplete or outdated information limits understanding of what’s happening at the shelf. Merchants are often left piecing together periodic audits, lagging sales reports, and phantom inventory caused by shrink or mispicks, or relying on costly, infrequent store visits to see execution firsthand.

That approach is no longer tenable. The pace of change, the rise of omnichannel expectations, and the financial impact of missed execution make real-time shelf intelligence essential. Pressure at the shelf has never been higher, and merchants are being asked to do more with less.

How Shelf Intelligence Elevates Key Merchant Use Cases

1. Planogram Drift and Non-Compliance

Planograms may look perfect on paper, but in reality, execution unravels quickly. New sets don’t always get executed, complicating early sales forecasts and replenishment strategies. Even when executed correctly, resets can drift within weeks; facings misalign, tags disappear, and products move out of place. Manual audits catch only a fraction of the issue.

With daily Planogram Insights and Realograms, merchants can see where execution is slipping, down to the SKU, and correct it before it affects sales. Realograms—auto-generated, to-scale diagrams of what’s actually on the shelf—give HQ, field, and vendor teams the visual truth needed to align quickly.

One regional director summed it up:

“I want a report card that shows which stores are trending higher on out-of-stocks. If one store’s at 25% and everyone else is at 10%, that’s a red flag and now I can see that.”

2. Identifying Misplaced or Under-Faced SKUs

A top performing item missing from the shelf, or a brand under-faced across stores, represents lost revenue and diminished trust from shoppers and vendor partners alike. But catching these issues across hundreds of stores has traditionally required manual spot checks or waiting for lagging sales signals.

With Multi-Store View, category managers, buyers, and inventory planners can instantly search and see the on shelf availability of any SKU chain-wide, surfacing where products are missing, misplaced, or mis-set. What once required days of visits and reports can now be assessed in minutes.

During a recent demo, one retail leader shared:

“When we cut in a new item, I want to see every store that has it and where it’s placed. This makes that possible.”

Another saw potential far beyond merchandising:

“This would be huge for our compliance and QA teams. If there’s a Class 1 recall, they could verify every shelf, in every store, instantly. No waiting, no second guessing.”

3. Promotional and Seasonal Execution

Promotions and seasonal sets are make-or-break moments. Whether it’s Halloween candy or a back-to-school display, execution gaps can mean millions in missed sales during crucial “must-win” periods. But verifying whether stores set displays correctly is nearly impossible at scale.

Realograms give merchants an accurate, visual snapshot of what’s on the shelf and how displays are set, without requiring travel or actual planograms. Teams can track promotional compliance across hundreds of locations simultaneously, ensuring consistency and maximizing ROI. Not only that, creating structured, accurate, and visually complete captures of in-store conditions improves future planning and buying cycles. Given long lead-times, committed vendor buys, and international supply chains, merchants are often asked to begin planning next-years holiday sets before the current season has even finished. Being able to clearly see and confirm what current season execution looks like, and how that may correspond to sales performance, gives teams new tools to make critical decisions.

4. Vendor and Brand Performance Tracking

Merchants rely on vendors and suppliers to deliver on execution commitments, but without objective data, accountability is fuzzy. Too often, business reviews are driven by anecdotal evidence or fragmented reports.

Vendor & Brand Dashboards centralize shelf share, on-shelf availability, and pricing and promotional accuracy by brand or supplier. With one-click reporting, merchants can go into vendor conversations with clear, actionable data turning reviews into true joint planning sessions.

5. Out-of-Stocks During High-Value Events

Nothing frustrates shoppers more than finding a promotion advertised but the shelves empty. Out-of-stocks not only cause immediate sales loss but also drive shoppers to competitors.

With chain-wide visibility into product placement and availability, merchants can see gaps in near real time, triage stores at risk, and ensure key promotions deliver.

6. Tailoring Store-Specific Assortments

A one-size-fits-all approach to assortments leaves money on the table. McKinsey research shows localized assortments can lift sales 2–4%, but making those adjustments at scale is notoriously complex.

By analyzing Realograms and vendor performance data, merchants can identify stores where planogram refinements would deliver outsized gains and adjust assortments with confidence.

Why This Matters Now

Shelf digitization is now foundational for modern retail operations.

Complementing our Store Intelligence ™ platform, Simbe for Merchants is designed to give merchants actionable insights where they need them most.

By unifying corporate, field, and supplier teams around a single source of shelf truth, we’re helping retailers reduce lost sales, improve execution, and rebuild shopper trust.