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Aptos to offer more dynamic AI experiences for retailers in 2025

Tom Bottomley
04 February 2025

Unified commerce solutions provider Aptos has committed to its largest ever research and development (R&D) spend in 2025, set to fund new in-store AI capabilities for retailers.

The Aptos ONE acceleration programme will offer sales and customer insights and personalised product recommendations.

Specific to store operations, Aptos will also be launching a GenAI chatbot that can help store managers and shopfloor staff better understand what’s happening in their stores and leverage that data to drive improved sales performance.

According to VP of Strategy and Product at Aptos, Nikki Baird, the GenAI chatbot is one of the ways Aptos is promoting data driven decision making on the front line of retail.

Baird said: "We’re bringing advanced embedded reporting to Aptos ONE in 2025, and with our GenAI chatbot, we are making analytical sales data more accessible and actionable for store staff.

"For example, a store manager can ask the chatbot, 'what are the five worst selling items in this store this week?' Based on the response, the manager might decide to alter promotional and visual merchandising activities for those products.

"Over the last two years, we’ve put a lot of focus into platform readiness for AI. This has included evaluating partners as well as preparing our data strategy.

In 2025, we will introduce AI-generated customer insights summarisations and product recommendations. These will be displayed to store associates via the Aptos ONE POS UI during customer inquiry and product inquiry lookups.

:With these AI insights, associates have highly relevant information to engage customers in that moment - creating a more personalised and service orientated experience."

Aptos’ bold moves in innovation come during a "technology inflection point" for retailers. Outdated retail systems pose too much risk - from operational constraints and "customer experience disconnects" to security vulnerabilities.

According to Aptos, avoidance of those risks will drive mass adoption of modern POS solutions and unified commerce platforms in 2025 and beyond.

Aptos General Manager, Jeremy Grunzweig, said: "At Aptos, we talk to hundreds of retailers each year, and I can tell you the question is no longer 'if' they’ll be adopting a modern POS solution. The question is now 'when?'

"The question then becomes: 'What vendor will support them on their unified commerce journey?' We want that answer to be Aptos.

"That means more investment, scale, resources and innovation are going into Aptos ONE. We have added extensive core POS and omnichannel capabilities to Aptos ONE over the last 12 months, and our 2025 roadmap brings the 'sizzle'."

Aptos firmly believes that the more personalised retailers can make the experience for shoppers, the more likely they are to become loyal customers and brand ambassadors. That is the premise behind Aptos' new 'Clienteling' features - available in Aptos ONE.

Ian Auerbach, VP of Product Management at Aptos, said: "In addition to the AI-generated customer insights and personalised product recommendations, also coming to Aptos ONE in 2025 is customer level visual purchase history.

"Other details we provide to associates to help personalise the customer’s shopping experience include loyalty status, return information, style preferences, special occasions such as birthdays and other data contained within a CRM.

"Aptos ONE is extremely effective at bringing together information about customers and products and presenting that information in a way that is meaningful and compact for associates.

"Importantly, Aptos Clienteling is available in the POS UI; employees do not have to reference a separate application or a separate device. This makes personalisation via Aptos ONE very natural and seamlessly integrated."

Additionally, following Aptos’ 2024 release of its Store Inventory Management (SIM) application, the company is expanding that app’s functionality in 2025 to include fulfilment.

With Aptos Store Inventory Management & Fulfillment, retailers can holistically manage all movement of inventory coming into or leaving the store. That includes support for shipping and receiving, cycle counts, inventory adjustments, pricing updates, carrier integration and shipping label printing for transfers between stores. It also includes viewing, picking, packing and shipping of orders routed to the store for fulfilment, as well as returns.

"It’s impossible to be a successful and profitable omnichannel retailer without the effective management of store inventory and fulfilment," added Auerbach. "We’re combining our SIM & Fulfilment offerings into a single app to make it easier than ever for retailers to achieve accurate and precise inventory processes in store and streamlined fulfilment workflows.

​"With our SIM & Fulfilment app, retailers are best positioned to tap into the power of store inventory to maximise sell-through and keep promises to their customers."


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