Pittsburgh startup launches system to monitor inventory at stores

A Pittsburgh startup that makes technology to track the comings and goings of products on a store’s shelves has struck a deal that will deploy its technology at 7-Eleven convenience stores in the region.

Shelfmark, an Uptown-based tech firm, has installed its small cameras in the ceiling at 11 7-Eleven stores to monitor inventory. It’s a way for merchandise distributors to know what’s popular, what needs to be restocked and how customers are interacting with products without always having to hit the road to see for themselves. The camera feeds back to an online dashboard for distributors to keep track of products.

For Cucina Calabrese Foods, a direct store delivery business that supplies snack products to Miramar Brands’ 7-Eleven, the system helped make its operations more efficient.

Charles Calabrese, owner and operator of the Uniontown distributor, said drivers making deliveries to stores typically show up with a set amount of products in the truck and replace whatever is running low. The technology is meant to take some of the guesswork out of knowing what stores need attention and what items to bring.

“It’s a part of the supply chain that was underdeveloped,” Calabrese said. “This has increased our efficiencies and increased sightlines in to stores so we can see how customers are engaging with products and how products are performing.”

“We’ve been able to reduce time on the road, running vehicles,” he added. “The amount of time we spend in stores has decreased by 15 minutes and the number of stores we were able to reach has gone up.”

Shelfmark was spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. The idea was born after riding along with delivery drivers and spending time on grocery store receiving docks, said Pat O’Donnell, founder and CEO of Shelfmark.

“We saw that the process by which brands deliver products to grocery and convenience stores is almost entirely manual,” O’Donnell said. “One of our customers said that direct store delivery hasn’t changed since Budweiser pulled beer with horses.”

This summer, Shelfmark set up shop in an Uptown building constructed in the 1920s that once housed the Paramount Film Exchange. The company has seven full-time and eight part-time employees.

“For a company like Cucina Calabrese, they used to have to make runs from Uniontown to Ellwood City, which is over two hours from their warehouse, to check on products,” O’Donnell said. “Now they can do that all from the comfort of their warehouse.”