Acosta, Pensa Systems Offer At-Shelf Visibility, Data
Acosta Group sales and marketing agency Acosta and Pensa Systems, a provider of digital retail shelf inventory management solutions, have partnered on an at-shelf solution for CPG brands and retailers.
The partnership brings together Acosta's business intelligence, analytics, in-store data collection and merchandising solutions and Pensa’s AI-powered shelf intelligence and computer vision, according to a media release.
Pensa's technology informs a variety of performance indicators, including on-shelf availability (OSA), space optimization, shelf compliance and promotional effectiveness. According to a media release, an entire aisle can be captured by any hand-held device in less than 17 seconds, allowing for quick optimizations.
"We are excited to collaborate with Pensa to deliver the source of truth for what's happening on the retail shelf through computer vision and advanced AI," John Carroll, president of digital commerce and advanced analytics, Acosta Group, said in the release. "Our combined capabilities and solutions will accelerate sales and trade, optimize retail operations and further drive category ROI at the shelf for our clients and customers."
Pensa provides retailers and brands a “highly accurate” view of shelf inventory through continuous, automated monitoring of actual shelf conditions. Pensa's solution captures and analyzes hundreds of images of each individual product on the shelf to create a 3D digital reconstruction of shelf inventory conditions.
The end-to-end capture-to-insight process does not require new hardware, planograms or reference images from the manufacturer or related upkeep of a reference library, per the release. A total picture of actual shelf inventory conditions is created with all competitor and private-label products on an entire shelf captured.
In addition, Acosta says it lends business intelligence to review and analyze shelf performance, creating tools such as alerts to mitigate out of stocks, methods to optimize replenishment processes, optimal pricing strategies based on elasticity and profitability, measurement of brand performance vs. category and competitors, and measurement and optimization of the impact of category resets.
"In partnering with Acosta, we bolster the delivery of new data and insights to clients and customers with our ability to touch any store and any category at any time," added Richard Schwartz, president and CEO of Pensa Systems.