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Onebeat, an AI-driven inventory optimization platform, and Zipline, a retail execution and communication platform, have joined forces to offer a strategic integration designed to help retailers close the gap between strategy and in-store performance. Busy Beaver has adopted the integration to optimize store-to-store inventory transfers.
By combining real-time, SKU-level inventory decisions with seamless store communication and execution, the partnership gives retailers a more responsive, aligned and profitable way to operate and optimize their inventory, says Yishai Ashlag, CEO and co-founder of Onebeat.
“Forecasting isn’t enough anymore. Retailers need to be able to leverage the real-time, store-specific data already available to them. More importantly, they need the tools and capability to act on that data quickly and consistently—that’s what this partnership delivers,” Ashlag says. “By connecting Onebeat’s dynamic AI-driven inventory decisions with Zipline’s execution platform, we’re closing the loop between insight and action and empowering retailers to move faster, perform better and stay ahead of demand.”
By connecting Onebeat’s real-time recommendations to actionable tasks in Zipline, Busy Beaver streamlined product moves between stores—reducing excess stock while ensuring customers find what they need on the shelves, says Adam Gunnett, director of IT & business intelligence at Busy Beaver.
Gunnett says he has been focusing on using Onebeat to allocate inventory, provide replenishment recommendations and manage inner store inventory transfers, especially helping to reduce some of the overbuying that took place during the pandemic. Onebeat analyzes the inventory at each of Busy Beaver’s 19 locations and provides recommendations for products that are currently stocked in one store but would be more profitable in another Busy Beaver location.
“When you talk about tariffs and all these price increases, if we have inventory in one location that can sell in another, we’ve been able to use Onebeat to make those recommendations in,” Gunnett says. “And, while this data was incredibly helpful, we still had to rely on each store to pick the transfer and have it ready to be picked up and moved to another store.”
So, Onebeat worked with Zipline to build out an integration, where as soon as a Busy Beaver employee approves the transfer in Onebeat, the packing list was sent to the store through Zipline as a task to frontline employees’ devices who then build the transfer so it’s ready for the delivery driver to pick up.
As a one-man IT department at Busy Beaver, Gunnett says he appreciates when technologies can work together.
“When you have technologies in different silos, it’s not very effective. The fact that these technology companies are willing to work together makes our lives so much easier,” Gunnett says. “With Onebeat and Zipline working together, we’re not just identifying transfer opportunities—we’re actually getting them done at the store level, quickly and correctly. It’s a game changer for us because it connects our strategy directly to the frontline in a way that’s simple and actionable.”
