Nielsen and Trax Launch New Shelf Insight Tools

Nielsen and retail and consumer goods image recognition and analytics firm Trax have launched three new offerings, designed to provide US brands with access to both episodic and continuous views of shelf conditions.

Trax's services, powered by proprietary image recognition, machine learning and IOT platforms, are used to convert photos of retail shelves into shelf and store-level insights. It already works with the ratings giant to offer the Trax-Nielsen Shelf Intelligence Suite, and the two will now work with sales and marketing service provider Acosta to help CPG manufacturers anticipate the impact of shelf conditions on sales. Launched in 2017, the suite originally included two solutions, Shelf Pulse, featuring interactive visualizations and dynamic dashboards to help brands understand in-store shelf conditions; and Shelf Blueprint, a predictive analytics service that uses advanced retail data science models to enable CPG companies to set the best strategy for store merchandising.

The three new offerings are Shelf Pulse Lite, designed to extend the accessibility of shelf data to cater to different business needs and users within CPG brands; Shelf Pulse Point, which allows clients to view previous execution performance by category; and Trax Retail Snapshot, which uses crowdsourcing tactics to audit shelf and campaign execution for any product, at any time, in any outlet or retailer. This latter solution includes the option to link sales rates data to store conditions for analysis through Nielsen's Merchandising Insights (MI) tool.

Nielsen Connect North America President Jeanne Danubio says the expanded partnership with Trax gives brands the tools they need to predict shelf influence on the bottom line. Dror Feldheim, Chief Commercial Officer, Trax, adds: 'Our expanded suite of offerings with Nielsen combines the best of both worlds: our innovative computer vision platform and crowd capabilities and Nielsen's vast product reference data, empowering the industry with every available insight to optimize and refine shelf conditions'.

Web sites: www.nielsen.com and www.traxretail.com .