Microsoft Scenario Library Retail Improve merchandising decisions

Available with: Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio

Retail scenario: Improve merchandising decisions

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Scenario

Use AI to assist with market analysis and product selection when selecting new products to sell.

1. Define sales targets

Use Analyst to reason across multiple data sources and define topside sales targets based on historical data, market trends, and business goals.

Analyst icon

Analyst

Example prompt: Generate a table showing moderate sportswear sales by location for Q4 of last year, sorted by year-over-year (YoY) change. Include a current season-to-date column with YoY change.

Get Started with Analyst

2. Conduct market research

Research consumer demographics and spending trends by geography.

Microsoft Copilot icon

Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat1

Example prompt: What are the current blouse style trends in the greater London area, and which demographic is influencing these trends? Which retailers are carrying the most trend-right blouse items?

3. Create a dashboard

Visualize sales trends to help make purchasing decisions.

Power BI icon

Copilot in Power BI

Example prompt: Create a custom view in a Power BI dashboard to visualize data on seasonal apparel trends.

4. Make product selections

Curate an assortment of products, including trending styles, seasonal items, and basic staples. Use a Copilot Studio agent to access data in the Sales database.

Microsoft Copilot Studio icon

AI Agent

Example prompt: Considering last year’s sales history and the current season-to-date performance, what is the optimal proportion of basic collared shirts versus fashion blouses for this year’s Q4 assortment?

5. Update projects

Using a Copilot Studio agent integrate the sales forecast into regional staffing level projections.

Microsoft Copilot Studio icon

AI Agent

Example prompt: Determine the differential in sales projections to current sales levels and apply that differential to staffing level projections.

6. Complete supplier agreements

Negotiate contract terms including margin and MAP pricing agreements.

Microsoft Copilot Studio icon

AI Agent

Example prompt: Provide the MAP pricing terms that our vendor, Contoso, agreed to for Q4 products last year.    Compare these terms with what we negotiated for this year in a table format.

KPIs

Opportunity to impact key functional area KPIs

Better manage costs, discounts, and pricing to improve average margins.

Improve quality of campaign content

  • Improve marketing content
  • Improve quality of proposals and RFP responses
  • Improve quality of emails and chats

Create pricing and promotional campaigns

Inform market research 

Ensure your marketing budget is used efficiently with research, analytics, and personalization capabilities that help you reach customers wherever they are in their shopping journey.

Improve quality of campaign content

  • Improve marketing content
  • Improve quality of proposals and RFP responses
  • Improve quality of emails and chats

Create pricing and promotional campaigns

Inform market research 

How Microsoft Copilot can help employee turnover rates

Reduce time spent on shift scheduling while optimizing coverage requirements. Improve employee morale with improved communication and simplified schedule changes.

Improve quality of internal materials and processes

  • Improve job descriptions for further role clarity
  • Improve company meetings with summarization and recap
  • Completely focus during the meeting

Improve employee collaboration

Create internal feedback loop

Help customers move from ‘browse’ to ‘buy’ with personalized shopping experiences that understand context to surface the perfect product, targeted marketing campaigns that maximize the power of your marketing spend, and helpful answers in the pocket of every store associate.

Improve quality of campaign content

  • Improve marketing content
  • Improve quality of proposals and RFP responses
  • Improve quality of emails and chats

Inform market research 

Create pricing and promotions

Streamline processes that lead to greater customer satisfaction, from analyzing multiple data sources to understand which products to stock to ensuring product availability and answering customer questions in-store.

Improve quality of campaign content

  • Improve marketing content
  • Improve quality of proposals and RFP responses
  • Improve quality of emails and chats

Inform market research 

Create pricing and promotions

Provide real-time monitoring of sales, inventory, customer feedback, and staff performance across different locations and/or channels by leveraging data from various sources to quickly gain actionable insights.

Improve targeting

  • Analyze current product mix
    and cross sell success

Improve quality of customer-facing materials

1Access Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat at m365copilot.com, or the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat mobile app and set toggle to “Web”.

2Access Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat at m365copilot.com, the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat mobile app, or the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat app in Teams, and set toggle to “Work”.

3AI Agents allow Copilot to access your organization-specific apps. In the past this would have required an API call to get data from a system of record.

The content in this example scenario is for demonstration purposes only. You should evaluate how Copilot aligns with your organization’s business processes, regulatory requirements, and responsible AI principles.