NIGERIA – Seta Field Services, a Nigerian tech startup, has launched a shelf-execution tracking application that helps consumer goods companies measure share-of-shelf, distribution, and presence across multiple outlets in multiple locations.

The application known as FETA (field execution tracking application) counts the number of times a product appears in a photo or video, and compares it with the number of times other selected products appear to determine company’s share-of-shelf, presence, and distribution figures.

The platform employs artificial intelligence in measuring and tracking share-of-shelf of a product versus full category. It can aggregate this data across several locations or products.

Market metrics such as market share and share-of-shelf are necessary in helping companies make informed decisions.

Seta’s Co-founder, Alto Osemegbe however, notes that although some international companies provide this data, they are not as effective in influencing production and marketing decisions as they are not suited to the unstructured nature of Nigeria’s markets.

He further noted that existing market insight haven’t been able to drill down to store-by-store data and thus are not able to provide raw actionable insights on what happens on the customer’s shelves.

Osenegbe explained that FETA seeks to address this gap by providing reliability and detailed data which can be acted upon by consumer good companies.

“FETA has what it takes to concurrently serve thousands of companies, and is crafted in such a way that each company enjoys finer insights and data the more companies are on board,” said Osemegbe.

So far, Seta has run a six-month pilot of FETA with the merchandising team of Flour Mills of Nigeria, which came to an end in March due to the challenges of COVID-19.

The startup however noted that the results from that pilot helped it to increase FETA’s recognition capacity from 76 per cent to 92 per cent.

The Fund which has been able to secure a partnership with TSQ Alto, a consumer goods company based in Nigeria, hopes to secure funding to enable it explore other capabilities of the FETA app including facial recognition in selected public places and object recognition

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