Executive summary

The Better Basket team has created a unique product that aims to be the first end to end pricing and assortment solution for grocery stores. The team at Better Basket has created their own proprietary algorithm that will automatically research, analyze and price relevant products that their client wants to know about. They are looking to take this technology into the US$$800$ billion$-$dollar industry that is the food and grocery market in America and combat the growing distrust in grocery stores. They will aim to partner with both food and beverage brands as well as individual and chain stores to provide them with all the relevant information to price their goods effectively. Their algorithm instantaneously processes online flyers, websites and other data to create a database that with all the relevant product information and determine relevant store trends. In the digital age where more and more information is available online, Better Basket is creating the future of competitive pricing software. While they are currently partnered with three small grocery stores based in New York, they are currently in need of merchandising analytics for pricing and procurement teams and looking to expand.

They are competing with several large and established companies in the advancing of AI within the food and beverage industry in the U$.$S$.$ The possibilities of AI have yet to be truly realized in this space and they offer a unique way for smaller grocery chains to compete on price and products. If their AI is fully functioning, they could also be purchased by one of the larger chains as they are probably feeling the pressures from competitors such as Walmart and Amazon in their respective inquiries about AI$.$ The overall investment would only require $$5$ million for $10\%$ of the company and set the company evaluation at $$50$ million dollars.

What does Better Basket want to do$?$

Better Basket is a new approach to grocery store price matching and comparison software designed for grocery stores owner as well as food brand and beverage brands. This aims to be the first $$end to end pricing and assortment solution for grocery stores $($BetterBasket$.$ai$,2024).$ Using their proprietary algorithm, they can conduct portions of the necessary market research instantly and provide instant updates so that grocers know how to price their goods with all the knowledge readily available instantly. This information allows software users to enhance margins by positioning with market pricing to achieve desired category margins and pricing for key value items. This process can be straightforward: identify the best$-$selling items in local competitor chains and project their performance within your stores. The software gives users better pricing decisions through automated recommendations, eliminating the need for manual oversight. The user interface is completely customisable allows users to sort by individual items and conduct storewide investigations for both their own and competing stores, providing a complete comprehension of the market $($BetterBasket$.$ai$,2024).$

What problem are they solving?

The coronavirus pandemic and the worlds reactions to it caused several societal and economical changes leading resulting in an increase in gross grocery trade. This includes an unprecedented increase in the demand for online grocery shopping $($Dannenberg$,$ P$.,2020).$ This transition to e$-$grocery has created a new opportunity within the grocery industry due to the large increase in available online data and Better Basket has found a way to use this and believes they have a solution that they can help grocers and food and beverage companies better understand their products and performance. Their current and expected client base includes small to medium size grocers who are looking to compete with the larger chains. Better Basket will be providing a much$-$needed cheaper alternative to the outsourcing market research to a firm. Clients of Better Basket will have the opportunity to utilize more data$-$driven recommendations and research than their competitors and at a more affordable rate. This aims to level the playing field for some smaller grocers and food and beverage brands.

Better Basket states their product will be able to mitigate:

$$ The macro impacts from price volatility

$$ Customers pull for more localized selection.

$$ Shrinking pricing zones as local supply chains get impacted.

What is their solution and why is it special?

Since the Covid$-19$ pandemic grocers have faced a whole host of new and threatening problems including $($Mitel$,2024)$:

$1.$ Labor Shortages

$2.$ Online Shopping Boom

$3.$ Rise of Sustainable Shopping

$4.$ Grocery Inflation

By helping small to medium stores develop effective strategies with the help of their software and proprietary Ai they can form solutions to compete with Chains. Larger grocery chains have internal solutions to the prior$-$mentioned probl