AI-powered advancements and strategic partnerships position OR to lead the next era of retail innovation for global brick-and-mortar brands
TORONTO, Dec. 17, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Optimum Retailing (OR), the in-store intelligence and merchandise management platform for the world's most popular retail stores, today announced a year of growth, product evolution, and new client wins that set the stage for a dynamic 2025. With a growing focus on merchandise planning and allocation (MP&A) technology, OR has extended its platform to offer comprehensive support for every stage of store planning and execution.
With physical stores accounting for over 75% of global retail sales, forward-thinking retailers are seeking smarter ways to drive store-specific improvements. OR's momentum in 2024 is a testament to the growing demand for in-store solutions that can align merchandise planning, store optimization, and visual merchandising at scale.
"2024 was a year of transformation for Optimum Retailing as we expanded beyond traditional store planning to deliver comprehensive, end-to-end solutions for merchandising, allocation, and space optimization," said Sam Vise, CEO and Founder of Optimum Retailing. "The addition of tools like our Optimum Retailing Knowledge Assistant and Immersive Store Planner allows brands to run smarter, more agile store operations. Looking toward 2025, we're doubling down on AI-driven capabilities that make in-store agility second nature for our retail partners."
2024 Highlights:
In 2024, OR achieved significant progress across platform expansion, client
partnerships, and product innovation, including:
- Platform Expansion: OR enhanced its capabilities for MP&A teams, providing tools that improve buying, assortment, allocation, and inventory decisions. By tapping into store-specific data on space, capacity, and performance, OR enables retailers to make more informed store-level decisions.
- New and Expanded Clients: In 2024, OR expanded its presence in key verticals with traction in consumer packaged goods (CPG), grocery, and apparel. The company doubled the amount of stores managed in the UK by adding British Telecom/Everything Everywhere (EE), with further expansion into Ireland with Sky.
- Across the Board Growth: OR grew by an impressive 33% in 2024, alongside a remarkable 150% increase in AI and generative AI capabilities. Customer engagement surged by over 80% as clients embraced new tools designed to enhance retail performance. These milestones highlight OR's commitment to innovation and delivering impactful results for its customers.
- Talent Expansion: OR grew its headcount by 15% in 2024, strengthening its marketing, strategy, and product teams. Among these hires was new Chief Marketing Officer, Justine Melman, to spearhead efforts to increase brand visibility and market expansion in North America and beyond.
Product Innovations in 2024:
Innovation was also a key driver of OR's 2024 momentum. The company's product advancements offer retailers next-generation capabilities in automation, AI, and store planning:
- Automated Photo Compliance: Now with algorithmic image recognition to significantly reduce training time so teams can more rapidly validate planogram compliance with greater accuracy.
- Optimum Retailing Knowledge Assistant (ORKA): A powerful chatbot that provides instant access to store planning and performance data, supporting headquarters and store associates with real-time training, troubleshooting, and insights using generative AI.
- Immersive Store Planner: Empowers retailers to visualize store layouts using virtual reality, 2D, and 3D models, enabling more precise planning and optimization without disrupting operations.
- Digital Signage Management: Allows retailers headquarters to control in-store digital content across all locations in real time, ensuring brand consistency and device performance.
Looking Ahead to 2025
With a foundation of success in 2024, OR has outlined an ambitious roadmap for 2025. The company plans to solidify its role as the go-to partner for in-store intelligence, merchandise management, and store-specific optimization, including:
- Deepening Capabilities in Key Verticals: Ongoing expansion into the apparel sector with new capabilities for visual merchandising, allocation, and store-specific inventory planning, while also growing its market share in grocery, CPG, consumer electronics, and telecommunications, where it supports partners like Faherty, Lindt, Verizon, and Compass Group.
- Investing in AI and Generative AI Capabilities: Building new AI-driven capabilities that will enable faster, more informed decision-making for retailers. These updates will help retail teams access critical data more quickly, automate repetitive processes, and empower merchandising and allocation teams to work more efficiently.
- Big Presence at NRF 2025: Showcasing OR's latest product advancements and new AI-driven capabilities at NRF 2025 (January 12-14, 2025). The company is expected to unveil a suite of new features to enhance retailer agility and boost in-store profitability.
For more information about Optimum Retailing's capabilities, visit https://optimumretailing.com/ and follow us on LinkedIn. Find us at booth #753 in Hall 1A during NRF 2025.
About Optimum Retailing
Optimum Retailing (OR) empowers brick-and-mortar retailers with a ground-breaking platform that automates in-store operations and delivers scalable, store-specific merchandising strategies. By unifying store, zone and fixture performance with sales data, OR enables Merchandise Planning and Allocation teams to create tailored plans for each store that enhance sell-through, improve fixture profitability, and support sustainability. With advanced AI and generative AI, OR connects visual merchandising to real-time inventory and store capacity, ensuring every store receives accurate, actionable planograms that retail teams can easily execute. Leading brands like Verizon, Sephora, Lindt, and Adidas rely on OR to boost efficiency and performance with less effort, achieving results like an 80% increase in compliance, a 15-25% reduction in overstock, and a 20-30% decrease in non-selling hours. This is Smarter Retailing, and it starts with OR.
Media Contact
Katie Butler, Walker Sands for Optimum Retailing, 6145075512, [email protected], https://optimumretailing.com/
SOURCE Optimum Retailing
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