Arcade, a leading sales gamification platform for frontline workers, has acquired Upduo, a pioneer in AI coaching for retail sales. This acquisition has led to the introduction of a new product: Arcade AI Sales Leader.
This platform aims to address a significant issue in retail—how to disseminate the success of top store managers throughout the organization. The goal is clear: turn every field manager into your best sales leader.
Retailers invest a significant amount in training their managers, but these essential skills often atrophy without ongoing practice. This leads to ineffective coaching, high employee turnover, and inconsistent store performance. Arcade AI Sales Leader addresses this by establishing a robust system for continuous growth and effective execution on the sales floor.
The benefits of Arcade’s Sales Leader AI for retailers include:
- Faster training for new hires
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Quicker rollout of new products
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Less turnover among new staff
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Better customer and employee satisfaction
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Higher in-store sales conversion
For Store Managers, Arcade AI Sales Leader provides tools for effective coaching, real-time support, and easy-to-use scorecards that summarize performance and next steps.
For Store Associates, the platform offers ongoing learning during slow times, quality coaching from managers, and the recognition needed to encourage improvement and strong daily effort.
KEY QUOTES:
“The success of any retail location starts and ends with the quality of its manager. We saw a clear opportunity to solve a massive pain point. How do you bottle the magic of your best sales leader and deploy it everywhere? By combining Arcade’s strength in motivating frontline teams with Upduo’s sophisticated AI coaching engine, we’ve created a platform that does exactly that. We are empowering every manager to become a top-tier coach.”
David Cherrie, Co-Founder and CEO of Arcade
“Joining forces with Arcade is the perfect evolution for the technology we built at Upduo. Our vision was always to use AI to make skill development more effective and accessible. Now, as part of Arcade, we can bring that vision to life at a massive scale, providing a holistic solution that drives real-world results for retailers and their employees.”
Wei Sun, Co-Founder of Upduo and Arcade’s new Chief Technology Officer
“Arcade’s acquisition of Upduo is exactly the kind of forward-thinking move we encourage. They are fundamentally asking, ‘How will AI power our business to deliver more value?’ This is the question every industry leader should be asking, and Arcade is delivering a powerful answer.”
Adam Rogers on behalf of Next Coast Ventures
