Retail Solutions Partners With Gigwalk to Enhance In-store Execution

Retail Solutions Inc. (RSi), a global provider of cloud-based, Big Data analytics and real-time intelligence for the consumer products industry, has selected Gigwalk, a local visibility software platform, to power its new RSi Intelligent Crowdsourcing solution. The new offering provides clients with end-to-end business intelligence that drives sales by delivering real-time, actionable intelligence to field operations for improved in-store retail execution and on-shelf availability.

Under the terms of the agreement, RSi Intelligent Crowdsourcing will combine RSi's daily downstream data and alerting capabilities with Gigwalk's enterprise platform for on-demand access to Gigwalk's public network of 550,000 mobile-enabled independent contractors. The integration will enable retailers and brands to gather and share in-store intelligence, identify gaps in the supply chain, and trigger actions at the store level to correct errors in near real-time.  

"You can't manage, what you can't see," said Bob Bahramipour, CEO of Gigwalk. "Gigwalk eliminates blind spots to increase in-store sales. By bringing together RSi's sophisticated algorithm-based, on-shelf alerting and scorecard reporting with Gigwalk's local insights and on-the-ground resources, we are transforming traditional models of visibility, collaboration and action -- enabling brands and retailers to achieve new levels of retail execution and compliance."

Using RSi Intelligent Crowdsourcing powered by Gigwalk, suppliers can accurately detect store or event conditions, send real-time fix notices to store teams, share observations with the value chain, and reclaim lost sales. Pilot testing prior to launch, which was completed with five major retailers and multiple industry leading suppliers, resulted in an average ROI of eight times the original investment. In some instances, returns as high as 18 percent were achieved over a few weeks, according to the vendors.

RSi Intelligent Crowdsourcing blends the company's proprietary algorithms and on-shelf alerting technology with Gigwalk's reach and on-the-ground resources to bring customers a focused in-store activation solution that combines sophisticated retailer downstream data transformed into scientific out-of-stock alerts with local, on-the-ground intelligence and serves it to field and sales operations teams on a mobile device for immediate response, remediation and reporting. 

"This is an innovative approach to solving many store-related problems," said Peter Rieman, COO of RSi. "By combining hyper-local, crowdsourced intelligence with real-time alerting and mobile technology, we are – in many cases – providing the most cost-effective and timely way to understand, audit and solve in-store activation issues, including on-shelf availability, display compliance, new product introduction, seasonality and more."

With RSi Intelligent Crowdsourcing, CPG manufacturers can now know with certainty that each critical piece of their strategy is being executed correctly at the store level. The new solution was developed to take the guesswork out of retail execution initiatives like ensuring proper execution of promotional displays, new item planogram compliance or preempting risks for out-of-stocks.