Management

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, retail changed in a fortnight. Extra safety precautions, panic buying, fights over the last toilet paper rolls and understaffed stores – this is the new grocer reality! In these difficult times retailers are turning to AI solutions to support operational continuity.

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, retail changed in a fortnight. Extra safety precautions, panic buying, fights over the last toilet paper rolls and understaffed stores – this is the new grocer reality! In these difficult times retailers are turning to AI solutions to support operational continuity.

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, retail changed in a fortnight. Extra safety precautions, panic buying, fights over the last toilet paper rolls and understaffed stores – this is the new grocer reality! In these difficult times retailers are turning to AI solutions to support operational continuity.

Nobody likes waiting in lines. According to research, people spend from 3 to 5 days per year queuing up. That might add up to 6 months of waiting for things during a person’s lifetime! Long queues at the supermarket cause shopper fatigue, decrease customer experience and result in shopping cart abandonment.

In my 20+ years in retail I learned one thing: retail loves precision! Retail managers are obsessed with key metrics: sales per square foot, average transaction value, year on year sales and many more to evaluate your store performance. However, there is a key problem with this approach - the tracking is done on the store level. Sure, you can compare performance with other stores. But it gives little insight on what needs to be changed to improve performance.