AI Consulting · For retailers
AI consulting for grocery & specialty retailers
Custom engagements from the team behind Scout, built for category, merchandising, and analytics teams who want vendor scorecards, promo effectiveness, and basket analysis on their own data, not on generic panels.
Brand-side CPG? See our CPG brand practice →
Where engagements typically focus
Starting points, not a menu. We scope to the question that actually matters to your team.
Vendor scorecards
Standardized performance reads on every supplier: sell-through, on-shelf availability, promo ROI, trade-funded vs unfunded growth. The conversation buyers want to have, with the numbers ready.
Category performance across banners
Sliceable views of category, sub-category, and segment performance by banner, region, store cluster, and time. Find the winners worth replicating and the laggards worth a hard look before the next reset.
Promo effectiveness from the buy side
Was the trade-funded promo actually incremental, or were you paying for purchases that would have happened anyway? Separate true lift from baseline, retention from one-time loading, and price-pack from headline-promo.
Basket & cross-merch analysis
Which items co-purchase, which sections lift each other, and where end-cap placements are actually moving the basket. Built on your loyalty and POS data, not generic syndicated panels.
How we engage
Three shapes, depending on where you are.
2–4 weeks · custom-scoped
AI Strategy Audit
Map your category-management stack, surface the highest-leverage AI opportunities, and deliver a prioritized roadmap. Audit pays for itself in clarity even if the build never starts.
4–10 weeks · custom-scoped
Custom Analytics Build
Design and ship the workflow the audit identified: vendor scorecard automation, category dashboards, or promo effectiveness models. Built on Scout against your POS, loyalty, and supplier data.
Ongoing · custom-scoped
Embedded Data Team
Embedded analyst + engineer pod that runs as an extension of your category and merchandising teams. Ad-hoc analyses, line-review prep, and the buildouts that never make it off the someday list.
Why work with us
Retail-native, not a generic AI shop
We've built Scout against the data that actually runs grocery. We speak basket-level loyalty, ACV, syndicated panels, and we know which questions a category manager actually asks at the start of a planogram review.
Working software, not slideware
Every engagement ships something operable: a vendor scorecard, a category dashboard, a promo evaluator. The kind of work your team actually uses on Monday morning. We don't deliver a deck and disappear.
Your data, your IP
Engagements ship on Scout with documentation and a handoff session. Your analysts can extend, modify, or rebuild anything we deliver. We don't lock work behind opaque IP.
What customers say
Less time wrangling, more time deciding
“Scout cut our category review prep time significantly and armed us with competitive insights that would not have been surfaced in our standard data review process.”
Director of Sales· Heirloom Coffee RoastersTell us what you’re working on
A 30-minute conversation to scope fit. No deck required.
Book a consultTell us what you’re working on
A 30-minute conversation to scope fit. Pick a time that works for you.