Notes from the inside of retail decisions.
Why we built Solya, how we think about decisions, agents and data, and what we’re seeing on the ground with retail teams.
What is WSSI? Weekly sales, stock & intake planning
WSSI — weekly sales, stock and intake — is the weekly heartbeat of merchandise planning. It sets the financial frame, but it doesn't make the decisions.
Retail ERP vs a decision layer: what each does
A retail ERP is your system of record — it runs the transactions. It doesn't decide the SKU/store moves. That's a different layer, and often a missing one.
What does a retail merchandiser do? Role and skills
A retail merchandiser decides what a store sells, how much, and at what price. It's a decision job — and the decisions now outnumber the hours to make them.
What is a retail supply chain? Definition and stages
A retail supply chain moves a product from source to shelf. The physical flow is largely solved — the leverage now sits in the decisions that run it.
Omnichannel strategy: a practical guide for retailers
An omnichannel strategy isn't a list of channels to connect. It's an operating model for deciding — one stock, one customer — across all of them.
What is store inventory? Methods and why accuracy matters
Store inventory is the stock a shop holds and the record of it. When the two disagree — and they usually do — every downstream decision inherits the error.
AI in retail stores: what it actually does today
AI in retail stores is sold as robots and cameras. The AI that actually moves margin is invisible — it decides what to stock, move, and mark down.
Inventory planning: definition, why it matters, examples
Inventory planning decides what to buy, hold, allocate, and move across a season. Most retailers run it as a forecast when it is a chain of decisions.
What is omnichannel retail? Definition, stakes, examples
Omnichannel retail is usually sold as a plumbing project. It is really a decision problem: one stock pool, many channels, all competing for the same units.
What is retail replenishment? Definition and examples
Retail replenishment is the process of keeping the right stock in the right place as it sells. Simple to define, hard to do well at SKU/store scale.
Replenishment software vs. the replenishment decision
Most replenishment tools compute an order quantity and stop there — but the order is a decision with trade-offs no rules engine resolves on its own.
Decision intelligence software: what it is and isn't
Search the category and you get a wall of vendors all claiming the same label. Most are BI or forecasting tools in new packaging. Here's how to tell them apart.
What Breaks in Retail Decisions at 50, 100, 300 Stores
Past 20 stores, growth doesn't just add decisions — it changes their nature. Each band breaks a different manual loop.
Digital merchandising is a decision function
Digital merchandising gets confused with the storefront. The real surface to digitize is the decisions: assortment, allocation, replenishment, markdown.
Inventory optimization is a decision, not a forecast
Most inventory optimization projects solve a math problem that retail no longer has. The leverage moved from the formula to the decision around it.
Kill the analytics queue: let merchants query live data
Every ad-hoc data request is a decision delayed by days. The fix isn't another dashboard — it's letting merchants query live data in plain language.
What every retail CEO should ask about a decision platform
A CEO rarely buys a decision platform — they authorize a change in how the company decides. Here are the questions that tell you whether it will stick.
Generative AI in retail: where it helps, where it's hype
Generative AI is transforming retail's language tasks — search, content, copilots. It is not what decides a markdown or a replenishment. The two get conflated.