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Retail runs on thin margins. General merchandise retailers posted an average net margin of 5.6% in the most recent NYU Stern analysis of public company filings, and grocery retailers cleared just 1.3%. Retailers have also added products and sales channels faster than their systems track them, multiplying the number of pricing, marketing, and inventory decisions that must be made every day.
Demand moves fast enough that the U.S. Census Bureau updates its retail sales estimates every month rather than on a slower cycle. Inside most organizations, the teams responsible for those decisions work separately, and the underlying forecasting models often operate in silos, solving one problem at a time rather than accounting for their interactions. Margin absorbs the difference.
Felix Hoffmann, Founder and CEO of 7Learnings, joined Emerj’s Yolandi de Weerdt on the AI in Business Podcast to discuss how retailers can unify pricing, marketing spend, and inventory into one coordinated commercial system that delivers stronger margins, clearer demand signals, and higher‑quality decisions.
