AI-Powered Assortments Propel Incremental Sales: Report

SymphonyAI Retail CPG data affirms that customization enhances category performance and shopper loyalty

6/27/2023

A new report from SymphonyAI Retail CPG shows that AI-driven customized assortments reap incremental sales growth.

Attesting to the power of customization, new research from SymphonyAI Retail CPG shows that stores using assortments powered by artificial intelligence can get a 1% to 2% lift in incremental sales. According to the group’s analysis of 60 million global households and more than 630 million shopper baskets, stores that create assortments based on customer needs can bolster loyalty and retention of valuable shoppers by a half of a percentage point.

The latest intelligence — featur ed in SymphonyAI Retail CPG’s new e-book, The Power of Customer-Centric Assortment Decisions — al so revealed the importance of tailored offerings in smaller stores. Retailers with less shelf space and smaller footprints benefited the most from such tech-enabled, customer-centric assortments, growing sales by nearly 2% annually.

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Some categories get a particular boost through AI-powered customization. Frozen meals, baby food, oral care, healthy foods and sweet snacks netted notable incremental gains from these tactics, the research indicated.

“All retailers strive to fill store shelves with products that satisfy their customers’ needs, but keeping up with those needs is more challenging than ever,” said Laetitia Berthier, the firm’s head of client management. “E-commerce, competing store formats, and rapidly evolving shopper behavior have made optimizing product assortments in stores very difficult using traditional methods. Fortunately, AI-based solutions using predictive and generative AI can seamlessly deliver these space-aware and customer-centric assortments at scale, enabling retailers to develop an enduring competitive advantage.”

AI solutions and advanced analytics, such as those offered by SymphonyAI Retail CPG, analyze large data sets to create optimal category plans and relevant assortments. The group is a division of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based SymphonyAI and works across several sectors, including the retail and CPG industries. In early June, SymphonyAI acquired tech platform 1010data to expand its enterprise AI capabilities in retail, CPG and financial services.