AI in retail gets discussed far more than it gets used, and most of the discussion is about possibility rather than the specific, dull tasks that consume a retailer’s week.
The Tower Systems software has had AI tools embedded since 2022. They now carry a name, Retailer AI, and they are aimed squarely at those dull tasks.
The Ai tools we offer cover so many areas now. Here are just some of them …
Supplier invoices
This is where most retailers find the largest single saving. It’s the easiest to access saving too.
A supplier invoice arrives as a PDF, an Excel file or a typed Word document, and traditionally someone keys it in line by line. Cost prices, quantities, retail prices, item after item. On a large invoice that is an hour or more, and every line is a chance for a typing error that later becomes a pricing error.
Retailer AI reads the invoice and imports it.
The saving is partly time and partly accuracy. An invoice imported correctly means stock on hand is right, cost prices are right and margin reporting can be trusted. An error introduced at this point travels a long way through a business before anyone notices it.
If an invoice does not import cleanly, it can be emailed to Tower Systems, where the team works on making that supplier’s invoices import easily and accurately in future.
The other tools
Product descriptions. Writing headings and descriptions for online listings is slow work that most retailers put off. Retailer AI drafts them, which helps stock get found in search.
Price comparison. Checking pricing against other retailers without spending an afternoon on it.
Replenishment ordering. Generating an order without working through a long, multi-step process.
Theft detection. Flagging transaction patterns worth a closer look.
Business insights. A plain-text end of shift summary comparing the day with recent trading, in place of a stack of reports.
Where the savings land
Retailers using the tools report saving between five and ten hours a week. The figure varies with the business and with how many of the tools are in use.
Hours are the visible saving. Harder to count, and probably worth more, is the effect on decisions. A decision made sooner, on complete and accurate information, tends to be a better decision.
There is a financial point worth noting too. Retailers choose their own AI model, whether ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and control their own AI spending directly. Tower Systems does not sit between the retailer and that access, and does not add a margin to it.
Getting started
Begin with invoices. It is the clearest saving and the easiest to measure. Time one invoice keyed by hand, then time one imported, and the comparison makes the case on its own.
Add one tool a month after that. Trying everything at once rarely sticks.
Book a training session. The tools are included in the software, and the free training covers how to use them.
Retailer AI is available across the specialty markets Tower Systems serves, including newsagents, jewellers, bike shops, garden centres, bookshops, pet shops and toy shops.
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