TORONTO, Feb. 5, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Optimum Retailing (OR), the leading retail intelligence platform for the world’s largest brick-and-mortar brands, today announced significant growth and innovation achievements in 2023. This past year’s advancements, notably in artificial intelligence (AI) and RFID technologies, have enabled a wide range of retailers to enhance their operations and adapt to the rapidly changing demands of physical retail.

Despite a dynamic and challenging retail environment, global brick-and-mortar retail sales are expected to exceed $22.6 trillion in 2026, underscoring the enduring value and relevance of physical retail spaces. This trend highlights a growing need for innovative, efficient, and intelligent retail solutions that can adapt to the rapidly evolving consumer landscape. Leading the way, OR is revolutionizing retail intelligence, enabling a broad spectrum of multinational retailers to optimize their in-store experiences and operations.

“We’re very proud of the innovations we brought to market in 2023 and are looking forward to helping more retailers automate and smarten up their in-store investments in 2024.”

– Sam Vise, CEO and Co-founder

“2023 was a significant year of growth for Optimum Retailing,” said Sam Vise, CEO and co-founder of Optimum Retailing. “Our company and product growth enabled us to continue helping the world’s leading retailers capitalize on seamlessly enhancing their in-store customer experiences. We’re very proud of the innovations we brought to market in 2023 and are looking forward to helping more retailers automate and smarten up their in-store investments in 2024.”

Through partnerships and a commitment to strategic expansion, OR experienced substantial milestones in 2023, including:

• Expansion in Retail Footprint: OR technology was adopted in over 30,000 brick-and-mortar stores, marking a 20% increase in new stores.
• Team Growth and Leadership Enhancement: The company witnessed a 54% increase in headcount, focusing on marketing and communications and introducing key executive roles such as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Creative Officer.
• Strategic Partnerships and Clientele Growth: OR extended its collaborations with industry giants such as Sephora and Verizon, while also bringing onboard new international clients like Vodafone, Xfinity, The Mobile Shop, One NZ, Cellular Sales, and Kroger. Additionally, this year marked OR’s venture into the grocery and consumer packaged goods (CPG) sectors, thanks to alliances with Globalworx and Smartways.

Additionally, through its dedication to innovation, OR rolled out key product enhancements in 2023:

• Automated Photo Compliance (APC): Launched at NRF 2023, phase two of OR’s APC allows retailers to verify planogram execution with multi-angle fixture images. The fall 2023 release of phase three further innovated this process, enabling the execution of complex fixtures with various products and graphics from a single image, up to 10 feet wide. This update slashed store execution time by 87%.
• Fixturegram: Addressing the challenges of top-down planogramming, OR’s Fixturegram enables headquarters to tailor planograms to each store’s specific inventory levels and merchandising needs. This AI-driven solution automates planogram creation for each fixture, significantly reducing planogramming efforts by 78% and contributing to over 40% reduction in store inventories.
• Smart RFID Integration: In response to the growing adoption of RFID in retail, OR, in collaboration with its partners, developed a scalable and effective RFID solution. Smart RFID integrates RFID technology into the OR platform, enabling real-time planogram monitoring. By aligning RFID data with planograms, the system ensures planogram accuracy and guides stores in corrective measures. Initial tests have shown that this technology dramatically boosts inventory accuracy from 70% to 99%.

Looking forward to 2024, OR is laser-focused on serving businesses in the quick-service restaurant (QSR), CPG, and apparel industries in addition to its already robust portfolio of customers. The company plans to enhance and expand its range of automated service offerings for retail operations which will help businesses optimize their staffing, supply chain, inventory management, pricing, and merchandising practices.

“In 2024, our goal is to make technology a central focus of the in-store experience. Through our RFID and AI technology, we plan to make store management a live process that prioritizes automation and personalization, and drives stronger consumer engagement and conversions. We’re very excited about these features and are looking forward to sharing more news throughout the year.”

Laura Valentin-Schöffel, Director of Business Development

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