Precision Over Assumptions: How Retailers Are Rethinking Assortment Planning

There’s a quiet shift happening behind the shelves of your favourite store. It’s not flashy or customer-facing—but it’s radically reshaping how products make it into stores, how quickly they appear, and whether they’ll stay. At the heart of it is assortment planning—and according to Andrew Blackmore, Head of Memory UK&I and Nordics at VusionGroup, the real differentiator today isn’t just better technology. It’s better, faster decision-making.

“Retailers have more data at their fingertips than ever before,” Blackmore said in a recent conversation. “But data alone doesn’t create value. It’s how you use it—and who you use it with—that sets the leaders apart.”

Smarter Data, Not More Data

As buzzwords like “AI” continue to dominate retail headlines, Blackmore is quick to reframe the conversation. For assortment planning, he argues, it’s less about artificial intelligence and more about intelligent automation—tools that help humans make faster, better decisions.

In his view, two data sources still drive the bulk of meaningful insight: retailer transactions and customer loyalty or rewards programs. These give retailers a clear understanding of not just what’s selling, but who’s buying, where and when—and how products interact within a single shopping mission. “Understanding how shoppers behave in real life allows retailers to tailor assortments to specific store formats, customer segments, even time of day,” he said.

The trick now isn’t sourcing more data—it’s simplifying and prioritizing what’s meaningful and actionable - context is everything “You could be swimming in social data, scraping competitor websites, monitoring every SKU online,” Blackmore noted. “But 85 to 90% of the best and most actionable insights still come from understanding your own shoppers in your own stores.”

From Silos to Strategic Partnerships

Blackmore sees a critical—but often overlooked—ingredient in successful assortment planning: collaboration. Not just between internal departments, but between retailers and suppliers.

“Retail is fundamentally about partnerships. You can have the best insights in the world, but if your supplier doesn’t trust your data—or vice versa—you’ll never unlock real value,” he said.

Shared data platforms are closing that gap. When both sides work from a unified source of truth, joint planning becomes not only faster but more effective. Trust improves, subjectivity is removed, and suppliers can bring their global insights to the table in ways that align with a retailer’s specific goals. “It’s where good assortment planning becomes great,” Blackmore said.

This collaborative approach is especially powerful when it comes to launching new products. Whether piloting a new snack flavor or testing a niche wellness category, the smart use of the right data can guide retailers  in  selecting the right test stores, build control groups, and assess early indicators of long-term performance—like customer repeat rates or segment-specific traction, thus minimising the time to either fully capitalise on a successful product or remove those that won’t enhance the category performance in the long-run.

The Future Is Focused

Blackmore is especially excited about where this all leads: toward what VusionGroup calls “positive assortment.” It’s a next-gen approach to planning that integrates sustainability into product selection—not just for compliance, but competitive advantage.

“Retailers are starting to ask deeper questions,” he said. “What if we could design our assortments to reduce CO₂ impact? What if we could hit our net-zero goals without sacrificing product appeal?”

That’s now possible. By layering environmental metrics onto sales and shopper behaviour data, retailers can fine-tune assortments that meet both customer demand and ESG targets. Combined with increasingly granular insights—down to store-level preferences and even time-of-day patterns—it’s becoming clear that the future of assortment planning is as much about precision as it is about profitability.

“Retailers that succeed won’t be the ones doing more,” Blackmore said. “They’ll be the ones doing what matters—faster, smarter, and in partnership.”

Click here to watch a full recap of Blackmore’s insights!