How we can help
AI Retail Merchant Assistant
By combining agentic AI, rich data, and retail best practices, we help you unlock powerful insights that power faster, more confident decisions across the entire merchandising lifecycle.
Data powers modern retail decision making; our AI Retail Merchant Assistant turns that data into action. In today’s tough macroeconomic climate, merchants are under pressure to produce profits and unlock new income streams (e.g., retail media) as they navigate rising channel complexity, often while saddled with legacy processes that can’t keep up with this pace of change.
Many retailers have already invested heavily in tools, dashboards, and analytics; what they need to stay focused on customer needs and business results is simplicity . Our AI Retail Merchant Assistant delivers this by embedding AI into existing workflows and combining proprietary data, third-party sources, and our proven best practices. It supports strategy setting, product selection, supplier negotiations, and pricing and promotion optimization. The result: practical, actionable insights that build on existing capabilities, advance best practices where needed, and harness advanced analytics to create measurable impact across the merchandising lifecycle.
AI Retail Merchant Assistant Applications
AI Retail Merchant Assistant Applications
Successfully embedding AI within your merchandising team goes beyond just adopting new technologies and tools; it requires fundamentally reimagining how work is done. We help you design the processes and workflows that markedly boost efficiency gains.
Category copilot
Consolidates data to support planning, category deep dives, trendspotting, and performance tracking
Customer-led category management
Aligns assortment decisions with customer needs, highlights must-win subcategories, identifies new potential products, and unlocks incremental margin growth
Advanced retail buying
Streamlines supplier negotiations, ensuring consistent, high-quality outcomes for every buyer, regardless of their experience level
Pricing and promotion
Provides store-level recommendations based on pricing analytics, customer perception, and promotional performance data
Inventory and supply chain analytics
Identifies stock imbalances, aligns buying plans to real-time demand, and connects category strategy with supply-chain operations
What to Expect
What to Expect
Flexible deployment
The AI Retail Merchant Assistant can be implemented within Bain-led engagements or scaled independently inside your organization with a range of integration options.
Targeted insights
Intelligence helps redirect teams’ efforts toward high-impact, savings-generating activities; improve pricing and promotion precision; and align inventory planning with real-time demand.
Operational support
We help you go beyond technology adoption to fully reimagine how work is done, including building capabilities, redesigning processes, and upskilling teams.
Impact
Impact
50-70%
Average productivity gains for core buying activities
