Merchandising solutions
Retail intelligence for
merchandising and category teams
11Ants gives merchandising and category teams two ways into their loyalty, transaction, budget and inventory data: Ant, an AI retail expert that answers commercial questions in plain English in minutes rather than days, and research modules such as Category Review and Promotion Evaluation for deep, repeatable analysis. Category managers use it to prove which promotions worked, prepare for supplier meetings and find where margin is leaking.
9
countries
4,000+
stores
40+
research modules
11Ants is a Retail Intelligence platform used by retailers including Mercator, IDEA, Metcash, Konzum and Green Cross Health. Retail Intelligence is the decision layer on top of retail analytics: analytics tells you what happened, and intelligence tells you what to do. 11Ants gives teams two ways in: Ant, an AI expert anyone can ask in plain English with no training, available 24/7, and more than 40 research modules, ready-built retail analyses with their own visualizations for deep, repeatable work.
What jobs does 11Ants do for merchandising teams?
Merchandising leaders are under pressure to make sharper range, promotion, pricing and inventory decisions, and to make them faster. The data usually exists. What’s missing is the time it takes to turn that data into a decision. 11Ants covers three jobs:
Ant also helps with two other merchandising jobs: making decisions while the window is still open, and balancing inventory and availability.
What can a category manager ask Ant?
Category managers ask Ant the same questions they would ask an analyst, in their own words. These are real question types drawn from thousands of questions retail users have asked Ant.
How can I help?
Was the growth in this category promotion-supported or genuinely incremental?
Which stores were up on last year, and which were down?
Why is pet food in decline, and what is driving it?
Which supplier earned the growth, and which is buying it with promotions?
Run me a sales review for this brand for the last three years.
What is the GP% on the 2 for $32 offer?
Show me the top 10 and bottom 10 SKUs in this category.
Analyze this brand and suggest a delist.
Which SKUs are out of stock at these stores?
Ant asks a follow-up when a question needs more context, so short questions work.
Ant asks a follow-up when a question needs more context, so short questions work.
How can I help?
Was the growth in this category promotion-supported or genuinely incremental?
+
Which stores were up on last year, and which were down?
+
Why is pet food in decline, and what is driving it?
+
Which supplier earned the growth, and which is buying it with promotions?
+
Run me a sales review for this brand for the last three years.
+
What is the GP% on the 2 for $32 offer?
+
Show me the top 10 and bottom 10 SKUs in this category.
+
Analyze this brand and suggest a delist.
+
Which SKUs are out of stock at these stores?
How does 11Ants work for merchandising?
11Ants connects to the data your business already holds and puts it behind two tools: Ant for plain-English questions and research modules for deep analysis. Most customers are up and running within two weeks.
Data used
Loyalty, point-of-sale (POS) transactions, promotions, budgets and inventory, with 27 months of rolling history updated daily.
Modules merchandising teams use most
Category Review, Supplier Review, Promotion Evaluation, Performance Diagnostics, Gain Loss, Range Optimization and SKU KPIs.
Outputs
Answers with charts, tables ready for Excel, and briefs you can take into a meeting or board pack.
Security
Hosted on Microsoft Azure, with data compressed and encrypted before upload.
See Ant answer a category manager’s question
Demonstration data; brand names are illustrative.
What do merchandising teams say about 11Ants?
11Ants has increased my efficiency, I don’t have to contact business intelligence for every matter – I’m more independent.
Ambrož Rozman
Category Manager, Mercator
11Ants is like a robot that knows everything. He has all the data, he has all the ideas, he has all the answers.
Sunčica Dučić
Trading Development Manager, IDEA
Which other teams
use 11Ants?
Merchandising decisions touch every other team, and 11Ants gives each one answers from the same data:
Merchandising FAQ
What is retail intelligence for merchandising?
Retail intelligence for merchandising is software that turns sales, loyalty and promotion data into recommended decisions on range, promotions, pricing and inventory. Analytics tells you what happened. Intelligence tells you what to do. 11Ants delivers it through Ant, an AI expert category managers can question in plain English, and research modules built for category, promotion and supplier analysis.
Do category managers need SQL or an analyst to use Ant?
No. Ant is built for business users. Category managers type a question in plain English and get an answer from their own data, with no SQL, dashboards or report requests needed. Analysts then have more time for strategic work instead of routine queries.
What data does 11Ants need?
11Ants uses loyalty, POS transaction, promotion, budget and inventory data. It connects to common sources including Microsoft SQL Server, Databricks, Oracle, Amazon Redshift, Teradata, SAP and Snowflake, and holds 27 months of rolling history refreshed daily.
How long does it take to get started?
Most 11Ants customers are up and running within two weeks. Teams can start with a manual data upload to evaluate the platform, then switch to automated daily uploads.
How is 11Ants different from a BI dashboard?
A BI dashboard shows the measures someone set up in advance. With 11Ants, a category manager asks any commercial question and gets the answer, the reasons behind it and a suggested next step. It sits on top of your existing data and doesn’t require a new build.
Is 11Ants just an AI chatbot?
No. Ant gives category managers fast answers in plain English. Alongside it, research modules such as Category Review, Supplier Review and Promotion Evaluation give the deep, repeatable analysis that category reviews and trading meetings need, with visualizations built for merchandising.
