HIVERY is delighted to announce the release of the latest IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by HIVERY. The study explores the growing trend in assortment merchandising solutions and discusses where the industry is headed as well as offering essential guidance on how to get started today.  

IDC is a premier global provider of market intelligence and advisory services for information technology. The IDC InfoBrief series examines how the latest disruptive technologies are fueling revolutions in specific industries.

With 65% of retailers now saying AI is essential for merchandise analytics and 54% of them citing that improving ecosystem collaboration with suppliers is a top priority, IDC is seeing the emergence of Next Generations (“Next-Gen”) merchandising solutions.

In this IDC InfoBrief, Next-Gen Merchandising Solutions: New approaches to meet the coming challenges of retail, IDC examines the growing trend in assortment merchandising solutions and discusses where the industry is headed - going beyond artificial intelligence (AI) used for automation to AI used for strategy augmentation and rapid decision making. IDC offers some practical guidance on how companies can get started and meet these challenges.

"We are seeing a trend in next-generation merchandising solutions rapidly evolving from one focused on traditional tasks like assortment management, assortment planning and optimization of planograms, towards one of assortment strategy augmentation. These are not replacing traditional solutions, but rather leveraging in new ways not possible before” say Leslie Hand Group Vice President, IDC Retail and Financial Insights  

Given HIVERY’s innovative technology and associated product suite in this field, we are excited to share the results of this study. These Next-Gen merchandising solutions have been found to

• foster better collaboration amongst retailers and Consumer Package Goods (CPG)
• provide more effective assortment plans
• generate better planograms, and
• ultimately make shoppers happier.

At HIVERY, we can attest to this. Our specialization involves pioneering hyper-local retailing and offering retail AI-driven assortment strategy simulation and optimization ​​solutions to consumer-packaged goods companies and retailers, transforming the way collaboration occurs.

Effective collaboration, together with rapid strategy development and quantification has become ever so important considering such recent market shocks as the COVID pandemic and ongoing supply chain issues. These events have essentially distorted ‘demand signals’, making demand forecasting incredibly difficult.

As a result, companies (both retailers & CPGs) need to look at the demand signals differently. This includes being able to run rapid multiple scenarios, prioritize ones with high impact and the likelihood of occurrence, and then develop assortment plans to address them accordingly.

“We will see Next-Gen solutions be able to answer high-level strategic questions like what the impact on sales will be if a specific supplier distribution is reduced, and which specific stores should a new product innovation be distributed to. More importantly, it is able to communicate it rapidly to multiply stakeholders. They will be conversational in nature, more goal-focused, and less process-driven,” says Leslie Hand 

To download a copy of this paper, click: Next-Gen Merchandising Solutions: New approaches to meet the coming challenges of retail