AI in Retail: Unlock New Opportunities with Huq and AI Analysis

Welcome to AI meets Location and Movement Data. Here is where the powerful combination of Huq’s data and generative AI unlocks valuable insights rooted in superfast analysis and informed recommendations. This doesn’t replace human insight and decision making – but it will aid thinking and resource time. Let’s jump into how AI can level-up location intelligence.

As we’ve talked about in our 101 Guide for Retailers, Huq’s unrivalled location-data product suite empowers our clients with the agency to make strategic decisions – rooted in real-time intelligence. Sometimes, it helps to harness more insights – driven by AI – to add dimension, sharp analysis and recommendations to drive even more impact.

Combining the twin technologies of our Huq data analysis, and fast-growing generative AI tool ChatGPT, can power up your AI-powered retail insights; and could help retail strategists shape and improve customer targeting, giving you competitive advantage.

Let Huq take the expense away from consultancies and bring this in-house – cheaper and faster!

Here are just some examples as to how together, AI and Huq can identify blind spots, analyse swathes of data in seconds, and even give recommendations as to how your organisation might employ the findings to grow your data-driven retail strategies.

Huq data can provide information on footfall traffic – and therefore – patterns around retail environments. When combined with AI, this data might be analysed to forecast peak shopping times and customer flow around, and within, stores. Retailers can use this to inform colleague deployment, in-store layouts, and design better, data driven marketing strategies.

Combined with density and catchment data, retailers can make informed decisions in identifying new store locations, understand the variants and seasonality of footfall and consumer behaviour, and figure out what audiences they are failing to capture. See below.

By integrating our data with AI-powered analytics, retailers can better understand, predict, and influence consumer behaviour. Insights such as dwell times, frequently visited areas within stores and even preferred shopping routes, can help retail strategists determine where to place product, and optimise sales. Generative AI algorithms can help identify patterns in this data to personalise shopping experiences and drive stronger and more strategic marketing.

Better understanding behaviour and product popularity, gives retailers a strong hand to forecast demand, and therefore more accurately optimise supply – minimising stockouts and reducing overstock accordingly. Location data, and AI analysis can even help identify the busiest times and routes for last-mile delivery services. We imagine (for example) florists, and restaurants would benefit from this knowledge. This is the kind of intelligence that drives Amazon – but it’s yours at a fraction of the expense and hassle!

Huq global data also helps retailers identify footfall, dwell and density around competitors’ stores. Applying AI algorithms can mean identifying areas with higher customer overlap, and help retailers make informed decisions around market positioning and develop competitive advantage.

AI and its myriad of – seemingly unlimited – iterations and innovations of new tools and uses, comes of course with caution; principally when it comes to the ethics around AI use, and the security of data. Our advice here is twofold: use good data, and ask the right questions.

By using informed and concise AI engineer prompts (and – yes – Huq has the expertise here to help you hone your questions for best case responses), we can quickly and confidently produce more precise, rich, and real-time intersectional data.

Data is only as good as its accuracy, and at Huq we have you covered. Our game-changing granular primary and third-party data sources– deep and detailed as they are – are anonymised and adhere to strict GDPR controls. It’s not possible to determine individuals beyond grouped socioeconomic, geographic, ethnicity, and age banding.

In turn then, when exploring consumer behaviour insights to hyper-personalised marketing we’ll help you generate accurate, informed, real-time trends, using our As a vertical data solution, with the highest data accuracy and consistency, we are among the only being leveraged by international research organisations.

Huq is trusted by over 300 partners, including major retailers, news institutions, the top 5 real estate brands, over 100 Government organisations, and international university research teams. With Huq, you’re in safe hands and globally acknowledged expertise.

To summarise, in this blog we’ve looked at how Huq and AI can work hand in hand to understand and optimise footfall; to forecast demand and grip supply and logistics like never before; drive efficiency when it comes to colleague deployment as well as product ranges, seasonality, and nudge purchasing; and how Huq helps retail leaders get a handle on the true demographics of its store locations and those of their competitors. Finally, we’ve identified how proactive retail decision-making can determine where new stores are placed.

Huq and AI disrupts and innovates retail – and we can’t wait to help you get the edge. Revisit our Huq and Retail 101 Guide, for breakdowns and examples of how we can work wonders for franchisee and store planners, portfolio and real estate managers, marketing leaders – not to mention impact on your ESG delivery.

We would love to work with you on your retail strategy, informing your leadership team with the insights that mean you can thrive – and not just survive in (what can be) a challenging retail environment.

Let data be your destination. Visit Retail – Huq Industries to book a demo, call us with your questions, and we look forward to meeting you.