Overview
A large-format retailer in China partnered with Clobotics to modernize retail execution through AI-powered image recognition. The project began with a seven-store pilot in China, validating the operational value of AI-powered shelf monitoring before expanding toward a broader deployment strategy. By combining mobile image capture, fixed vision devices, and AI image recognition, the solution provides continuous visibility across shelves, pricing, promotions, product availability, and store execution while integrating seamlessly with the retailer’s existing systems.
The Challenge
Managing execution across large-format stores creates significant operational complexity.
The retailer needed to:
Reduce reliance on manual store audits and periodic reporting
Improve the speed and consistency of retail execution monitoring
Increase data coverage across stores while reducing labor costs
Turn store observations into actionable insights for faster decision-making
Traditional approaches often required lengthy collection cycles, limited geographic coverage, high labor costs, and delayed reporting, making it difficult to respond to changing store conditions. As the retailer prepared to expand beyond the initial pilot in China, it required a standardized and scalable retail execution solution capable of supporting broader deployment.
The Solution
Clobotics designed a unified retail intelligence platform with a phased deployment strategy, enabling the retailer to validate the solution through an initial pilot before expanding to a broader store network.
The proposed solution included:
A seven-store pilot in China
Validating AI-powered retail execution before broader rollout.
Mobile image capture
For shelf and promotional display auditing, enabling rapid deployment without additional hardware.
Fixed IoT vision devices
For continuous monitoring of key shelves and displays, automatically collecting store images before daily operations.
AI-powered recognition
Covering product availability, out-of-stock detection, planogram compliance, pricing, promotions, brand share, shelf share, and competitive activity.
Cloud dashboards and APIs
Integrating structured retail insights into the retailer’s existing systems and workflows.
This phased deployment model provides a scalable path from pilot validation to broader implementation while supporting future deployment of autonomous shelf-scanning robotics.
Clobotics’ AI has been trained for large-scale FMCG retail environments, supporting recognition of 12,000+ beverage SKUs (99% accuracy) and 20,000+ daily chemical SKUs (90% accuracy), while enabling rapid AI model deployment with 90% automation efficiency.
Results
Continuous Retail Visibility
Replace manual audits with AI-powered image recognition and continuous store visibility, providing more reliable and timely execution data.
Faster Decision-Making
Generate real-time recognition results and automated reports, enabling teams to respond more quickly to execution issues and changing store conditions.
Actionable Retail Intelligence
Transform shelf images and IoT data into insights covering product availability, pricing, promotions, planogram compliance, and competitive activity.
Improved Commercial Performance
Support sales growth by helping retailers monitor execution, identify market changes, prioritize key customers, optimize channel strategies, and respond faster to opportunities.
Why Clobotics
Clobotics combines AI image recognition, IoT devices, and cloud analytics into a single retail intelligence platform. Rather than simply digitizing store audits, the solution transforms real-time retail data into operational insights that help retailers improve execution, accelerate decision-making, and build a scalable path toward store-wide digital operations.
