Top 5 Exciting Use Cases of Data Annotation in Retail, CPG & eCommerce Industries

We have a long journey to undertake and realize the full potential of artificial intelligence. Sorry to burst the bubble but Ai is still in its formative stage, efficient self-driving cars or accurate robot-assisted surgeries are still science fiction tales. We think Ai is intelligent but that’s a bit far from reality, for now, it’s simply logic-based like this:

While everyone understands AI requires ‘big data’ to train. The harsh reality is while we are getting big data in abundance the access to ‘smart data’ to train machine learning models is still a distant dream.

The fact is any machine learning model is only as smart and accurate as the data that is fed. Churning raw data into smart data is the work of efficient data annotation platforms.

Data annotation adds vital information to the raw data and converts it into usable data. It creates a structure to the data and clears out the noise for both supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms to work efficiently.

Objective

• We will develop a brief understanding of Data Annotation
• Dive deep into the Use Cases of Data Annotation in Retail
• Virtual Racks in Retail Stores and eCommerce Websites
• Virtual Trial Rooms for eCommerce
• Digital Assistants for Retail Stores
• Automated Warehouses for CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) Industry
• Customer Trend and Sentiment Analysis for eCommerce and Retail
• Have an overview understanding of the best Data Annotation Platform for Retail

What is Data Annotation (otherwise known as Data Labelling)

Data Annotation is the step where a large amount of data is labeled based on what humans think and define it to be. A bottle of wine will be labeled as wine and fed into the machine learning algorithms. The machine learning algorithm should then be able to discriminate between the various inputs and come up with accurate outputs.

For example, you are out grocery shopping at a supermarket and you pick up various items like soap, shampoo, rice, soda, spices, etc. The supermarket has a camera installed all over the place and it’s capturing your entire shopping experience. Now if the same data is fed as it is into a machine learning model to understand consumer behavior it will bear no result.

Because for that video footage to make sense the machine learning model should know what products you picked up and the brand they were from. Now, this is where a data annotation platform comes into play.

It reads and labels the products from the entire video footage and labels them accordingly. So that when it’s fed into the machine learning model the output can solve a challenge for the store or enhance customer experience at every touch-point.

Dive deep into the Use Cases of Data Annotation in Retail

Retail is a buzzing field that is being transformed by big data. According to research conducted by Forbes, Starbucks has achieved around a 26% increase in its revenues only for a period of three years (2016–2019). And Big data has a finger in that.

Similarly, notable brands like Costco, Amazon, Ikea, Asos, and more have relied on big data to transform their customer experience and Data annotation plays the most important role here.

So, let’s take a quick dive into exciting and prominent data annotation use cases for Retail, CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods), and eCommerce

Virtual Racks in Retail Stores and eCommerce Websites

Virtual racks are a futuristic extension of your retail sales floor. Retailers like ElectornicPartner and Knauber are best utilizing this technology.

If you are a fashion freak and always look to wear what’s in trend then a virtual rack will blow your mind. It’s like having a conversation with your designer, friend, and retail store assistant clubbed into one screen. You can get recommendations, unlimited customizations, and guided assistance to transform your look.

On eCommerce websites purchasing a product is easy but reading the description of ingredients and information related to nutrition is not possible. But virtual AR-powered racks make this possible now. Check it out!

There is expected to be a 10.5% increase in online grocery shopping and with an experience like this, I am sure the numbers will supersede.

Data annotation is used extensively here. For all products to be accurately categorized a reliable machine learning-powered data annotation platform like Labellerr is needed.

Virtual Trial Rooms for Retail and eCommerce

Has this ever happened to you?

You walk into a trial room, try on some clothes, and then realize they don’t fit, or perhaps a different size would fit better?

But often people drop the idea of purchasing thinking about the hassle of going through the entire journey of picking up clothes for trial, standing in the queue, and then getting a chance to try them in the trial room.

Here is a futuristic solution that will save you a lot of time and effort — a Virtual Trial Room!

If you are shopping online then the biggest problem is fitting. You can never be sure what size of clothes or type of accessories fit and look best on you.

The virtual Trial room comes to your rescue. Based on your height, fit, look and type it shows how exactly that selected accessories or clothes will look on you.

This is how Amazon has utilized Virtual Trial rooms to increase sales

Data annotation is so important here to segment clothes and categorizes them according to the assigned fit, color, design, etc. If labeling is done with precision then customers will have a smooth journey to choose the best product for themselves.

Digital Assistants for Retail Stores

Be greeted and assisted by the most intelligent being on earth — a robot! Yes, they absorb all the information about you, do not forget how you speak, what you like, and many more such observations.

Dominos has introduced us to DOM, he is your best man for delivering piping hot pizza and a heartwarming smile 🙂

Here text annotation comes into play. Text annotation is done for NLP or speech recognition by machines to understand words and emotions shared by humans. Text annotation is done for Digital Assistant Robots to enable them to give relevant information for queries asked by people in their speaking style.

Automated Warehouses for CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) Industry

Oh! This is my favorite use case, especially after learning about Alibaba’s automated warehouse. The scale and magnitude of which is almost unrealistic! Check it out

AI robotics are reliant on the availability of big data. In order to iterate new-gen AI, machine learning experts require pixel-perfect, accurately labeled images and videos that will allow robots to operate in dynamic environments. In order to meet these needs Machine learning-assisted data labeling (MLADL) service providers are much in need.

Check out a one-stop-shop, high-quality data annotation platform that provides exceptional annotating accuracy to the Retail and CPG industry.

Customer Trend and Sentiment Analysis for eCommerce and Retail

Did you write a review about a product that you bought online? Or did you comment on your friend’s post for a product they purchased? Beware you are being watched!

That’s how companies scrap data to understand sentiments and customer trends. People talking about anything can be made understood by the machine learning models through data annotation.

Natural Language Processing (NLP) annotation, entity annotation, text annotation is the popular language of data annotation to make customer sentiments understandable to the machine learning models.

An All-In-One Data Annotation Platform for Retail, CPG, and eCommerce

Labellerr a platform that helps you generate high-quality training data for your computer vision team to train and validate your AI applications in a speedy way.

Labellerr serves 3 product/service:

1. AI-Assisted Data Annotation Tool- This tool is a complete suite on which clients upload their data set and distribute the work to multiple annotators with all required project management workflow.

2. On-Demand WorkForce- Does your business need more human annotators to perform labeling tasks? If yes then you can choose one or more 3rd party vendors on our platform itself — A marketplace that can put this task to ease.

3. Plug-n-Play Pre Trained Model: Pre Trained model accessible via APIs. Labellerr has products that can deliver APIs with basic functioning to reach clients and can be modified on request.

Sign up with Labellerr today and see how you can generate high-quality training data to build your AI/ML model faster.

Originally published at https://blog.labellerr.com on January 26, 2021.