In an industry-first chainwide expansion, Schnuck Markets Inc. and Simbe Robotics will team on a multiyear full-scale rollout of Simbe’s Tally solution to all 111 Schnucks locations across the food retailer’s four-state footprint, making Schnucks the first grocer in the world to employ AI-powered inventory management technology at scale. Incorporating Simbe’s solution into chainwide operations will enable Schnucks to gain even greater visibility into store conditions, with deeper levels of business insights as it adjusts to a post-pandemic retail landscape.
Schnucks first piloted Tally in July 2017 and expanded to additional stores in 2018 and 2020. Tally robots roam store aisles up to three times a day and autonomously capture on-shelf data, including inventory position, price accuracy and promotional execution, for about 35,000 products per store with each trip. According to Schnucks, associates and customers have seen improved inventory and productivity in these stores, with many employees experiencing the “Tally effect,” the ability to spend time on other, more fulfilling tasks such as helping customers. Among Tally’s other benefits are:
- Incremental revenue opportunities, detecting 14 times more addressable out-of-stocks than manual scans;
- 20%-30% reduction in out-of-stock items in stores using Tally;
- Higher price tag and promotional execution compliance in stores across thousands of products per day;
- Better accuracy of real-time inventory integrated into Schnucks’ automated replenishment system, streamlining ordering and ensuring that store shelves are restocked more quickly to meet customer needs; and
- Access to real-time product location data via the Schnucks Rewards app, enabling more efficient shopping trips for customers, restocking and fulfillment activities for store teams, and third-party e-commerce partnerships.