01
Capture the shelf
The app guides overlapping shots of each fixture, and joins them into a panorama only when the overlap is trustworthy.
A clearer path from shelf evidence to execution.
Recognition, plan checks and reporting, built around the store visit.
From capture to review
02
Identify visible products
Each pack is matched to your catalogue, keeping its photo, crop, confidence and the candidates it was weighed against.
03
Check the agreed execution
Presence, placement and POSM are compared with your plan or planogram. Gaps and wrong variants are flagged.
04
Measure visibility
Facings, share of shelf and POSM, counted by rules you agree.
05
Review across visits
By store, brand or territory. Each result keeps the plan version it was scored against, so history stays comparable.
Two results from one visit
A fast result while the team is still in the store. A complete one for the whole category later. One visit record.
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Store visit
Photos submitted and accepted
The service clock starts here.
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+ 5-15 minutes
Store visit result
Phase 1 · provisional where coverage is incomplete
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+ 8 hours to 30 days
Full category result
Phase 2 · labelled complete when done
Phase 1
Store visit result
5-15 minutes
from an accepted submission, depending on your service tier
- Purpose
- An execution view of the active plan that the team can act on during the visit.
- Scope
- Active plan SKUs, plan metrics, POSM expectations and high-priority exceptions.
- Outputs
- OSA, visibility, placement, expected facings where they apply, POSM status and a prioritised action plan.
- Status
- Labelled provisional where photo coverage or the category is incomplete. It never reports an unobserved area as absent.
Phase 2
Full category result
8 hours to 30 days
from an accepted submission, depending on your service tier
- Purpose
- Complete recognition and analysis of the whole captured category.
- Scope
- Every detected product and material in the category, including items outside the plan.
- Outputs
- Full detection, final shelf and category metrics, complete plan evidence and updated reporting.
- Status
- Labelled complete once all scheduled processing is done. It replaces provisional category figures, never the audit trail.
Store visit results run at high priority and are never held behind full-category work, which is scheduled around them. How service levels are measured
An action plan built from evidence
Plan gaps with enough evidence become a ranked list of things to fix.
- Replenish or investigate an expected SKU that is absent from a fully captured area
- Correct a placement issue
- Restore expected facings
- Install or repair required POSM
- Capture an area again where the evidence is incomplete
Where coverage is insufficient, the action is to capture or review, never to replenish.
- 1 Replenish or investigate: shade 6.0 High
- 2 Correct placement: shade 6.1 in the 6.0 position High
- 3 Install POSM: campaign shelf strip Medium
- 4 Capture again: top shelf, bay 4 Review
When a detection needs a hand
Two assisted tools, for a product that was missed and a match that is wrong.
Add a missed visible product
The reviewer marks the visible pack; Pharos offers ranked catalogue matches. It only works for a pack that can be seen.
Mark a match wrong
Pick the right candidate from those already attached, or record that none fits.
Detected
Vitamin D3 1000 IU · 60 tablets
Candidates attached to this detection
- Vitamin D3 1000 IU · 60 tabletsPack ID 10482 Original match
- Vitamin D3 1000 IU · 120 tabletsPack ID 10483 Selected
- Vitamin D3 2000 IU · 60 tabletsPack ID 10491 Rank 3
- No correct option
Correction saved · original match kept · queued for quality review
Corrections never overwrite the evidence
The original match is kept beside each correction, with who, why and when, and reviewed before it touches the catalogue.
Measure shelf execution exactly the way you want
Choose the plan detail per category and fixture.
Descriptive assortment plan
The expected range, with facings and shelf, without a fixed grid.
- Measures
- OSA, visibility, expected facings, shelf or zone placement and location compliance.
- Best for
- Ranges that need flexible shelf rules rather than a fixed layout.
See how matching works, with an example
A descriptive plan is checked across every photo from the visit, not against one fixed position. Pharos matches each SKU to what’s on the shelf by its real product identity or barcode first, so a corrected barcode never breaks the match later; only when a client turns it on for a specific SKU will Pharos also match by brand and product name, kept off by default so two pack sizes of the same product are never credited for each other.
For every SKU on the plan, Pharos reports whether it’s present, how many facings were found, whether that meets the minimum you set, and whether it’s in the right zone or fixture area when one applies; and, where you set a reference price, whether the shelf tag matches it. Anything found on the shelf that isn’t on the plan at all is reported separately, so an unplanned product is never silently folded into the count.
- Expected
- Brand X Shampoo 400 ml, minimum 3 facings, eye level.
- Observed
- 2 facings found, at eye level: one short of the minimum.
- Also found
- An unlisted 200 ml variant, reported separately as off-assortment.
Illustrative example. Findings depend on your catalogue and the merchandising rules you agree.
Planogram and brand-block plan
An exact layout, with brand blocks and the sequence of products.
- Measures
- Brand-block presence, positional compliance, facing counts, wrong row or slot, and voids.
- Best for
- Fixtures where layout and block integrity matter commercially.
See how matching works, with an example
A planogram sets an exact layout: which product belongs in which position, shelf by shelf. Pharos first works out which physical shelf in a photo matches which shelf on the plan by what’s actually on it, not just how high up the photo it sits, so a photo that only covers part of a fixture, or a shelf split across two photos, still lines up correctly. When a plan describes only one brand’s block on a wider shelf, Pharos finds that block within the row automatically and checks only against it.
Within a shelf, every planned position is checked against the whole row at once, so one misplaced pack never throws the rest of the row out of step. Each position then gets one clear result: it matches, the wrong product is physically there, the right product is elsewhere on the shelf or on a different shelf, it’s genuinely missing, or the shelf simply wasn’t photographed, which is never scored as a failure. If the fixture itself doesn’t match what the plan describes, Pharos flags that the plan needs updating, rather than reporting the whole shelf wrong.
Scroll the diagram sideways to see it at full size.
matches the plan
needs a look
POSM is part of the plan
Each material has a location, dates and visibility rule, and is reported as present, missing or unverified.
Plans follow your sales cycle
Each visit is scored against the cycle active on its date, so past results stay comparable after a new range goes live.
A view for each role
Mobile-first, three views, the same evidence.
Merchandiser
Sees the plan, captures, gets the result in the store, and closes the actions.
Field manager
Follows visits, open actions and completion across their stores.
Trade marketing
Owns plans, cycles and campaigns, and reads patterns across the network.
Built for a fast go-live
No long manual coding. Setup is your catalogue, your plans and capture guidance, validated in a pilot.
Consistent reporting starts with a consistent catalogue
Names, variants and pack sizes must mean the same thing everywhere. We prepare it with you.
Know what the image can tell you
A photo shows one visible moment: not backroom stock, not what was out of frame. Pharos works from store visits, not continuous monitoring.
Deployment that fits your requirements
Private-first. The same service runs on your infrastructure or on dedicated servers we operate.
Your infrastructure
You control access, residency and operating windows.
Dedicated servers operated by Pharos
A private environment under agreed controls.
Approved cloud capacity
Optional, for peaks, only where your policy allows.
Every result records where each phase ran, including any fallback. Data & security