As Retail Planning Demands Faster Decisions, Brands Can Now Use Ellis to Accelerate Concept Testing, Determine Optimal Pricing, Curate Assortments and More
Pittsburgh, PA (January 15, 2025) – First Insight, the company that leverages AI to transform consumer feedback into profitable retail strategies, today announced the availability of its new AI growth tool, Ellis, to brands and retailers following a three-month beta period. Ellis introduces a conversational way for retailers to engage with consumer insight—allowing teams to ask strategic and tactical questions about new concepts, products, pricing, and potential demand by target segment directly within the First Insight platform. With Ellis, it can be answered and decided in minutes.
For nearly two decades, retailers and brands like Boden, Family Dollar and Under Armour have worked with First Insight to determine which products consumers will actually buy, the maximum price they’d be willing to pay, whether they should introduce product assortments in response to emerging trends, which packaging is likely to perform best and more. These insights have long been available through First Insight’s platform and dashboards, supporting strategic decision-making across pricing, assortment, and planning.
Ellis builds on that foundation by removing friction between insight and action. Instead of navigating reports or dashboards to answer new questions, teams can now ask strategic and tactical questions conversationally and receive clear, predictive answers instantly—making it easier to explore scenarios, pressure-test decisions, and move forward with confidence. All retailers need to do is ask.
Powered by First Insight’s predictive retail large language model (LLM), Ellis can work with retailers during concept testing and beyond to tell them things like the optimal price for each item in their assortment (by market and with margins in mind), the ideal assortment size (e.g., 6 vs. 9 pieces), the likely best sellers, items that different audience segments or locations are likely to gravitate toward, what an optimal assortment would look like, and any other trends directly informed by the consumer and customer insights they gain working with First Insight.
Here is a sample of the types of questions Ellis can now instantly answer:
What’s my ideal product assortment?
- What would the optimal assortment of items be based on this group of insights?
- What is the optimal number of items I should include in this assortment?
- Removing all items with polyester fabric, what is the optimal 5 item assortment?
- Would an assortment of 6 or 9 items be more ideal for US consumers?
- What item did respondents across all segments like the best?
What are my competitors doing, and what are their customers responding to?
- What do Walmart shoppers think about this SKU? How about Target shoppers? Which are most likely to buy it?
- How can we attract Amazon shoppers to our store?
- What items had a value score from 7 - 10 based on responses from competitors’ shoppers?
How can I optimize product pricing with margins, markets and markdowns in mind?
- What should my initial ticket price be for all items assigned to [target market] based on these insights?
- Compare the pricing results across all locales and provide pricing guidance for each market.
Can I have a rundown of the quantitative and qualitative feedback by item, market and segment?
- Summarize the feedback across all the items for the US and UK locales. Create a five-sentence executive summary with key takeaways for each locale.
- Give an executive summary of the results by target segment comparing Gen Z vs. Boomers for these insights.
- What do customers like about this item? Give me a brief 2-sentence summary of what they liked, based on their open-ended comments.
How do consumers’ preferences by location and market segment compare?
- Compare the results of this insight across all of the audience segments in the US.
- What are the product attributes or features received most positively by US respondents? How about Canadian and Italian respondents?
- Compare the results of this insight across all markets and provide an executive summary of each. The items are the same in each locale.
“For nearly 20 years, First Insight has helped retailers and brands predict pricing, product success, and assortment decisions by grounding them in real consumer feedback,” said Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight. “Ellis brings that same proven intelligence into the moment decisions are being made — from the boardroom to line review to early concept development. Teams can now ask strategic and tactical questions and get clear, predictive answers instantly, helping them respond faster to trends, understand competitive dynamics, and get to market ahead of competitors.”
Ellis makes consumer insight immediately accessible across the organization, reducing the time between question and decision. Instead of waiting on new analyses or navigating multiple views, teams can explore pricing scenarios, assortment options, and performance drivers in real time—allowing them to move faster as trends emerge and competitive dynamics shift, without sacrificing rigor or confidence.
First Insight offered brands and retailers a first look at Ellis at this year’s National Retail Federation (NRF) show in New York City.
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About First Insight
First Insight is a global retail platform that uses its native AI to turn real-time customer feedback into profitable strategies for more than 600+ brands and retailers. Companies like Under Armour, Woolworths and Family Dollar rely on First Insight to understand what consumers will buy, what they won’t, how much they’re willing to pay, and how these and other factors directly influence planning, inventory and margins. First Insight further transforms customer feedback into a Value Score™, assigned to every single product it gains insight on. These scores accurately predict the viability of and demand for products so that retailers can confidently make design, pricing and inventory decisions that will deliver measurable financial impact. The company’s Voice of the Customer Platform is central to its offering and boasts a network of 360+ million consumers spanning 180 countries and 67 languages and currencies. First Insight was founded in 2007.
