Trax Retail is a company that has a goal of enabling brands and retailers to harness the power of digital technologies to produce the best shopping experiences imaginable. The company’s retail platform allows customers to understand what is happening on-shelf, in every store, all the time so they can focus on what they do best: delighting shoppers. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Trax Retail chief revenue officer David Gottlieb to learn more.
Favorite Memory
What has been Gottlieb’s favorite memory working for the company so far? Gottlieb said:
“When I think about my time at Trax, I am drawn to the impact that we have for our customers and the people at Trax who make it happen. One memory that stands out for me is sitting with a customer’s leadership team in the U.S. and reviewing the results of their efforts to improve their sales and in particular, their field execution.”
“They were excited because they had significantly improved against their historical baseline and at the same time, gained real share from a key competitor in promotional activity. It was a great moment because they were so proud of what they had accomplished and our team felt like a part of the celebration because we were truly invested in their success.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Gottlieb assessed:
“We are fortunate to be playing in a very large market globally. When you consider the investments made today by retailers and CPG companies on technology and services to improve execution, combined with the budgets to support shopper marketing, the TAM is well over $100 billion.”
David Gottlieb’s Background
What is David Gottlieb’s background? Gottlieb said:
“I am the Chief Revenue Office at Trax, the leading global provider of AI-powered solutions transforming brick-and-mortar retail. I’m tasked with ensuring Trax achieves its overall sales and revenue goals and work with teams around the world to help prioritize markets and solutions that will drive business expansion. Prior to joining Trax, I was President and COO of Quri, a leader in crowdsourced in-store conditions data for the CPG industry. Before Quri, I served in leadership positions at Market6, Netezza, Oracle and Accenture.”
Formation Of Trax Retail
How did the idea for Trax come together? Gottlieb shared:
“Trax was founded in November 2010 by Joel Bar-El and Dror Feldheim, pioneers in the retail computer vision space, who saw an opportunity to provide more advanced and automated ways of helping consumer goods manufacturers understand and improve their in-store execution where it counts the most: at the shelf. We started as an AI and computer vision company that enables brands and retailers to harness the power of digital technologies to produce the best shopping experiences imaginable.”
Core Products
What are Trax’s core products and features? Gottlieb explained:
“Our core capabilities today fall in three areas. First, we deliver the world’s leading image recognition solutions supporting a variety of use cases for CPG companies. Second and connected to image recognition, we have a technology-enabled service called Dynamic Merchandising in which we support brands and retailers with skilled resources using a flexible labor model to help them execute in store. Finally, we have a shopper marketing solution called Shopkick where we connect shoppers directly to retailers and brands who want to encourage them to move along the path to purchase journey.”
“Our computer-vision technology is used to take pictures of in-store shelf conditions and analyze those images, in pixel-precise detail, to deliver actionable insights to CPG companies and retailers. Using deep-learning AI technology we can identify and measure if products are placed correctly, properly stocked, priced correctly, and much more. Based on these images and data, Trax can supply valuable insight to retailers on their in-store performance and help them fix any store-level issues using our Dynamic Merchandising capability.”
“Many of the world’s top CPG companies use our shelf monitoring, analytics, merchandising, activation, and shopper engagement solutions at scale to drive positive shopper experiences and unlock revenue opportunities at all points of sale.”
Challenges Faced
After asking Gottlieb about whether he faced any specific bottlenecks in his sector of work, he pointed out:
“Amidst the widespread adoption of AI, there have been concerns about the reliability of AI and the possibility of job loss. Trax has always focused on the use of AI technology to help empower workers both in the field and at headquarters. This mindset is built around offloading low value tasks that are best performed by a computer and allowing employees to spend their time on high value work.”
Evolution Of Trax’s Technology
How has Trax’s technology evolved since launching? Gottlieb noted:
“Like most machine learning driven solutions, Trax has evolved significantly both in our level of automation and in the scope of what we offer in our computer vision platform. In addition, we have leveraged the breadth of our solutions to begin offering solutions that uniquely take advantage of aspects of each of them. For example, our new signal driven merchandising capability is based on the idea that Trax can ‘sense’ the conditions in store using a combination of our shopper traffic and computer vision technology putting us in a great position to be able to deploy merchandising reps to the stores which need the most help.”
“Earlier this year, Trax Retail announced the launch of Signal-Based Merchandising (SBM). SBM provides brands with real-time visibility into what is happening within the store and on the shelf, down to the stock keeping unit (SKU) level. SBM connects to a network of shoppers, while they are already in the store, to gather real-time retail condition data points – known as signals – so brands can make quick and cost-effective decisions about their store-level execution.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Trax’s most significant milestones? Gottlieb cited:
“Throughout our journey, we’ve achieved several significant milestones that underscore our commitment to innovation and leadership in the retail technology space. Some key highlights include:
1.) Executing strategic acquisitions of Survey.com, Shopkick, Quri, and more to strengthen our offerings and meet the changing needs of our customers
2.) Securing a $640 million funding round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and BlackRock
3.) The launch of Trax Connector on the Salesforce AppExchange, allowing companies using the Salesforce Consumer Goods Cloud to use computer vision technology
Additionally, we are incredibly proud to serve 32 of the top 50 CPG brands around the world and have what we believe is the largest proprietary dataset of shelf images globally with nearly 12 billion unique images (and counting).”
Customer Success Stories
After asking Gottlieb about customer success stories, Gottlieb highlighted:
“Diageo is the world’s leading spirits company. Trax has been partnered with them for many years powering their “EDGE” (every day great execution) program. They have very generously shared in one of their annual reports that they see 3x the growth from stores that are part of this program powered by Trax than those that are not.”
Funding
After asking Gottlieb about funding information, he revealed:
“In November, we announced the completion of a $50 million venture debt investment from Deutsche Bank Private Credit & Infrastructure, accelerating our investment in Signal-Based Merchandising, a dynamic new solution leveraging Trax’s computer vision, shopper audience and crowd merchandising scale to drive higher ROI for brands and retailers on their investment in retail execution.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Trax from its competition? Gottlieb affirmed:
“Unlike other players in the space, we are shaping the future of retail by combining AI and computer vision with physical stores. Our solutions reduce the complexity of in-store retail to make it easier for brands to get items into consumer’s hands. AI-driven solutions like Trax provide the means to maximize their operational efficiency and enhance the consumer experience. It represents a seismic shift in how brands and retailers operate, providing them with the tools to thrive in an increasingly competitive market. We have grown to be a powerhouse in retail execution across measurement, merchandising and shopper engagement solutions.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of Trax’s future company goals? Gottlieb concluded:
“We are looking forward to serving a broader set of CPG customers in new and valuable ways and supporting our continued growth efforts and path to profitability in 2024.”
