Arthur Zaczkiewicz
2 min read
The firm 7thonline, a leader in multichannel, AI-based merchandise planning and inventory management solutions for retail, has launched CoPlanner, which the company describes as “a groundbreaking tool that auto-populates merchandise plans by analyzing historical data to identify what has worked best in the past.”
Retailers can think of it as an AI-powered merchandising partner that uses conversational AI.
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“Leveraging large language models, CoPlanner streamlines the planning process, enabling planners to make adjustments using natural-language queries and visualize the impact of their changes in real-time,” the company said, adding that the technology elevates merchandise planning while “granting quick access to actionable insights and stimulating results of various scenarios.”
The company said the system is designed to “continuously refine recommendations, freeing retailers to focus on strategic decision-making rather than manual processes on Excel.”
Max Ma, chief executive officer of 7thonline, said his company’s goal with the launch “is to make merchandise planning more intelligent, data-driven and automated. CoPlanner helps retailers start smarter by building on what already works, and then evolving those plans as conditions change.”
Ma said automatically, “Planning gets more precise and better over time as the system learns which planner-made adjustments are most accurately reflected in real-time data.”
The platform culls and integrates data from various sources, including past sales, turnover, markdowns, seasonality and even regional product demand, to auto-generate a smart, performance-driven merchandise plan. “Using conversational AI, 7thonline’s CoPlanner identifies winning patterns through contextual generative AI and applies trending insights at scale across categories,” the company said in a statement.
The value proposition for retailers includes saving hours of manual planning work so they can make sense of the data they collect. The platform also allows for continuous refinements and adjustments as new data is fed into the system.
The technology is also designed for a multichannel retail environment. “CoPlanner fits seamlessly into existing 7thonline platforms, empowering retail brands to enhance decision-making and manage planning, assortments, and allocation proactively across all channels,” the company said. “Whether for a single category or a multibrand portfolio, the tool gives planning teams the clarity and control to act fast and profitably.”
