42%
of retail executives use AI for demand forecasting (2023)
89%
of retailers are using or testing AI (2025)
7%
of organizations have reached fully scaled AI deployment
There is a lot of AI in the retail industry. From writing product descriptions, to creating marketing, helping with customer service, forecasting sales, displaying products, etc. While all these are great, what can AI actually help a retailer with?
If you have a current POS system, you’re already halfway there. Data is created with each sale or inventory update. Your POS can tell you what’s selling, who’s buying, what your margins are, promotions, seasons, etc. All of these are great data points that can be exported to a spreadsheet. So how can you utilize AI to that data?
Using AI with your current data
There are many articles that discuss how AI can help you write product descriptions, create marketing, etc. But what about using AI to help you analyze your current business.
A retail business can collect thousands of transactions through their POS system in one year. Each transaction will tell you what was sold, when, where, customer information, promotion, inventory, etc. That’s a lot of information to analyze about your business. But how do you use that information? Most retailers collect that data and create reports from it, that’s it.
You can create reports and dashboard to help you understand your data, but do you do with that information? That’s where AI can help you create more AI-driven business intelligence from your POS system.
From reports to answers
Using your data to create AI-driven business intelligence
There are many reports you can create from your POS system. Sales, Inventory, Customers, etc. You can create a report that will show you that your specials are selling well, or that a certain item is selling faster than normal, or that your customers are coming in more often. But once you have that information, do you know what to do with it?
With an intelligent system you can pull information from your POS data that will help you understand your business better. Some examples:
Sales: What categories are selling better than they were this time last year?
Inventory: What items are selling faster than normal?
Customers: What customers are coming in more often?
Margins: What items are selling more, but not giving you better margins?
Business: Are there any patterns in your sales or inventory that you should be aware of?
These are questions that you should already be asking, just with AI you can get the answers quicker.
AI will not take over your business
Your business won’t be taken over with software or with AI – it is just a tool to help your store. There are many things that a retailer knows about their business that can never be put into a database. They know their customers, market, vendors, and many other things that will never be put into a report. AI can only help you use the information you already have to make your business decisions.
Think of AI as just another tool to help you understand your information.
It will not make decisions for you, it will just help you understand the relationship between your data. Instead of you having to figure it out on your own, AI can make your business decisions.
Inventory, sales, customers
How AI can help your retail business
Here are some of the ways that AI can help your business that we think will be the most beneficial.
Inventory
As mentioned above, your POS system knows what you have sold in the past. If you have enough data, you can start to see trends in what you are purchasing, what sells in certain seasons, what items sell faster, and items that you may want to keep an eye on. This can help you predict what you will need to order, before you know you need to order it. Many retailers are already using AI to help them forecast their inventory needs. According to a study in 2023, 42% of retail executives are using AI for demand forecasting. By forecasting your inventory, you can buy what you need (and not too much, or too little). This can also help you create more business intelligence; by knowing what you need to order, you can act on that information.
Questions to try:
- “What’s below reorder point with no purchase order coming?”
- “What’s moving fastest this month compared to last month?”
- “Which products haven’t sold in 60 days but still have stock on the shelf?”
Sales
Just because you have more information, doesn’t mean you can make better business decisions. AI can help you find correlations in your sales data. You may know that a category is selling more, but what items are selling more? What time of year do those items sell more, and how does it compare to last year? All of these can help you make better decisions about your business.
Questions to try:
- “Show me sales by rep for last month.”
- “Which categories are up compared to this time last year?” Then follow up with: “Which items are driving that?”
- “What were our best and slowest sales days last month?”
Customers
There is a lot of data you can collect about your customers from your POS system. What they have purchased in the past, how often they come in, what categories they buy, how much they spend, etc. All of this information can help you create more business intelligence about your customers. You can start to understand your customers, and what they may want to buy in the future.
Questions to try:
- “Who are our top 20 customers by spending this year?”
- “Which regular customers haven’t been in for the last 60 days?”
- “What do customers who buy potting soil usually buy with it?”
Creating more AI-driven business intelligence
Not all retailers have someone that can analyze all of their data, and help them understand what is going on. Most retailers just want to know the answer to their question, and don’t have time to dig through their reports and try to find that answer.
By using AI, you can create new ways to access your business intelligence. This will allow you to ask better questions about your business, and get the answers you need.
Barton for NCR Counterpoint
What Rapid POS is doing with AI
At Rapid POS, we are building AI tools inside our existing NCR Voyix Counterpoint environment that can help our customers gain greater understanding of their business intelligence.
As a Rapid POS customer, your POS system will continue to be the backbone of your retail business. You will still need to process your sales, manage your inventory, keep your customers happy, and create reports. But by using our Barton AI connector, you can get more out of the information that your POS system is already collecting. Barton will also tell you plainly when there isn’t a pattern.
What's next for AI in retail
There are many articles that talk about what AI can do for your retail business in the next 5-10 years. But there are many things that you can do with AI today, to help you understand your business better.
There is a big gap between what retailers are doing with AI, and what they could be doing. 89% of retailers are using or testing AI, but across industries, only 7% of organizations have reached fully scaled AI deployment. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that they don’t know where to start. That’s why we believe that using AI to help you understand your current business intelligence is the best place to begin exploring.
When you examine the trends in your inventory, customers, and sales that you may not have known about before, you can ask better questions about your business – and get the answers you need. You don’t have to add more technology to your POS system, just make the technology you have, smarter.
Where Rapid POS fits
How can Rapid POS help you?
With our robust POS system, we offer many tools, integrations, and reports to help your retail business. We also have knowledge on how to streamline your processes and how to enable success across your business channels. We exploring other ways to add AI to your business to help you get more out of your data.
Contact us today to learn more about how Rapid POS can help your business.
Sources
Rapid POS · 3333 Camino Del Rio S, Suite 310, San Diego, CA 92108 · 619-754-4100
