Knowing where other CPG and retail services companies are putting their focus and their dollars is critical as you strategize for the year ahead. Repsly’s annual Retail Outlook Report is a great place to start. This year, we surveyed 170+ CPG and retail service professionals about their challenges and priorities going into 2025. Through our research, we learned what companies are doing to optimize their in-store presence, where they’re investing to get the most out of their field teams, and how they’re using technology to ratchet up revenue.
The big takeaway? While companies are feeling confident, they’re also feeling the heat of intensifying in-store competition. While inflation has decelerated, price-sensitive shoppers are still gravitating toward private label products and are more willing to take a chance on lower priced brands. In response, companies are renewing and redoubling their efforts to deliver exceptional in-store experiences: flawless execution, accurate pricing, consistent on-shelf availability, and meaningful interactions with customers.
To gain an edge in the crowded retail marketplace, CPGs and their service companies are leaning hard into data. Metrics like price, availability, planogram compliance, and promotion status, when combined with sales data, paint a valuable picture of how execution affects sales, and where improvement is needed. Nearly 50% of companies we surveyed plan to invest more in retail and sales analytics in 2025.
But data is meaningless unless it’s accurate and actionable. For our survey respondents, data quality and accuracy was the number one issue cited as an obstacle to measuring and improving the ROI of field teams, at 28%. Siloed data and lack of standardized measurement tools were also top challenges. The solution? Better technology.
One tool more and more companies are adding to their tech arsenals to support their data strategy is AI image recognition (IR) technology. IR is a powerful way to capture and analyze visual data at the shelf to ensure that products are stocked, displayed, and priced correctly, saving reps hours of rote, manual work in the process. Some IR retail platforms, including Repsly’s, are already able to deliver 95% accuracy in SKU recognition—a percentage that’s expected to climb.
Roughly half of the CPG and retail service professionals we surveyed are either currently using IR in their retail execution or plan to actively explore it in the coming year. We expect that percentage to grow steadily in the years ahead: The market for IR in retail is projected to reach $5.05 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 20.1%.
Our surveyed respondents named better quality data as one of the top potential benefits of the technology, and one of the key reasons for investing in it. Companies that have already made IR part of their retail execution strategy report that they’re seeing better shelf management and planogram compliance and better data-driven insights and analytics.
When brands and their service providers invest in retail analytics and other tools, they’re effectively empowering their field teams to do higher value work. With data insights and reporting, reps are better equipped to collaborate with retailers and adapt to challenges. Time-saving data-capture tools like image recognition, meanwhile, free them to be less tactical and more strategic, with a heightened focus on customer loyalty.
Field reps can also spend time on what a number of our survey respondents listed as a high priority for 2025: creating more engaging in-store experiences. When we asked which in-store activity gave the most return/incremental sales, the second most popular choice (after merchandising and product placement) was customer engagement and experience building on-site. Trends like personalized shopping, pop-up shops, in-store workshops, and other store experiences are becoming increasingly common as brands fight to stand out and win.
With over 80% of retail sales still happening in-store, optimizing the in-store experience is essential to long-term success. In today’s competitive store environment, it’s the companies that invest in data and analytics and other retail execution tools that will stay out in front.
To learn more about what CPG brands and service providers are strategizing for the year ahead, download the 2025 Retail Outlook Report: Retail Execution for a Competitive Edge.
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