Retail & Distribution

AI that moves product - and moves the metrics that matter.

We build AI systems for omnichannel retailers and distributors - from personalisation engines that increase basket size to demand forecasting that reduces overstock write-offs.

Demand ForecastingPersonalisationVisual SearchInventory AI
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30%

Average reduction in overstock cost

2.4×

Conversion uplift from personalisation

88%

Demand forecast accuracy at 90-day horizon

40ms

Avg. visual search response time

What we build

Demand Forecasting

Time-series ML models that predict SKU demand 30–90 days out across stores, regions, and channels - reducing overstock and stockout costs by 20–40%.

Personalisation Engines

Real-time recommendation systems that personalise product listings, promotions, and email content for individual shoppers - increasing basket size and repeat purchase rate.

Visual Search & Discovery

Computer vision that lets customers find products by uploading a photo - or automatically generates tagged product images for search and filter functionality.

Inventory Optimisation

AI-driven replenishment models that balance holding cost against stockout risk across multi-location distribution networks, integrating with ERP and WMS systems.

Pricing Intelligence

Dynamic pricing models that respond to competitor pricing, demand signals, and margin targets - with guardrails to prevent race-to-the-bottom scenarios.

Loss Prevention

Computer vision and anomaly detection for in-store loss prevention - identifying suspicious behaviour patterns without requiring extensive manual review.

The transformation

Retail without AI vs. retail with AI

Without AI

Buyers rely on gut feel and historical sell-through - overstock write-offs average 8–12% of revenue

Product recommendations are static 'bestsellers' - the same list for every shopper

Visual merchandising requires manual photography and tagging of every SKU

Pricing changes reviewed weekly by category managers - competitors react faster

Loss prevention relies on CCTV review after incidents occur

With StartxLabs AI

SKU-level demand forecasting at 88% accuracy over 90-day horizon drives replenishment automatically

Real-time personalisation engine serves unique ranked catalogue to each of millions of shoppers

Computer vision generates tagged product imagery and visual search index from raw asset uploads

Dynamic pricing engine responds to competitor signals and demand curves with configurable margin guardrails

Anomaly detection flags suspicious in-store behaviour patterns live, not retrospectively

How we deliver

From discovery to production in 12 weeks

01

Data audit

Review existing POS, WMS, CRM, and ecommerce data sources. Identify gaps and quality issues.

02

Data pipeline

Build ingestion layer connecting all data sources. Unified customer and product graph established.

03

Model training

Demand forecasting and personalisation models trained on your historical data. Baseline metrics set.

04

Integration

Models integrated with ecommerce platform, ERP, and WMS. A/B test infrastructure deployed.

05

Live & measure

Go live with monitoring dashboards. KPIs tracked weekly. Model retrained on fresh data monthly.

Case study

Fashion retailer: personalisation at 42M sessions/month

A mid-market fashion retailer with 380 stores and an ecommerce channel serving 42M sessions per month needed to move beyond static "bestseller" recommendations. Their existing personalisation was rule-based and channel-blind.

We built a real-time recommendation engine using session-level collaborative filtering, purchase graph embeddings, and inventory-aware ranking - deployed across web, app, and email channels from a single model layer.

2.4×

Conversion uplift vs. rule-based baseline

+18%

Average basket value increase

40ms

P95 recommendation API latency at peak

12 wk

Time from data audit to production go-live

Common questions

What retail clients ask us first

Do you work with Shopify / Salesforce Commerce Cloud / Magento?

Yes. We integrate with all major ecommerce platforms via their APIs. For personalisation and recommendation systems, we typically build a middleware layer that works alongside your platform's native features rather than replacing them.

How much historical data do we need for demand forecasting to work?

Typically 2+ years of transaction history gives the strongest results - enough to capture seasonality and promotional patterns. We can begin with 12 months and use transfer learning from category-level patterns to compensate for sparse SKU history.

Can personalisation work for a retailer with a small SKU count?

Yes - personalisation is as much about the customer journey as the catalogue size. For smaller catalogues, we focus on sequencing, timing, and channel optimisation rather than purely catalogue ranking, and content-based features replace collaborative filtering signals.

How do you handle data privacy for personalisation in GDPR markets?

Personalisation data is processed on a lawful basis (legitimate interest or consent, depending on your setup). We implement consent management integration, data minimisation, pseudonymisation, and user-level deletion pipelines as standard in EU deployments.

Ready to build your
next digital product?

Whether you have a detailed specification or just an early idea - we'll help you scope it, challenge the assumptions, and deliver it on time. No pitch decks. Straight to the point.

What happens next

1

Send us a message

Tell us what you're building or what's broken.

2

Discovery call (30 min)

We ask hard questions. You get honest answers.

3

Scoped proposal

Clear deliverables, timeline, and team in 48 hours.

Contact Us

Tell us about
your project

Whether you have a detailed brief or just an early idea, we will help you scope it, challenge it, and ship it.

  • Agentic AI development and multi-agent systems
  • Generative AI consulting and LLM integration
  • RAG development and custom model deployment
  • Data engineering, MLOps and custom software
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