LS Recommend is a solution in LS Retail's Intelligent Cloud Suite that helps retailers with product recommendation, so that they can predict what their customers want and enhance product discovery. It is a cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution hosted and operated by LS Retail.
With LS Recommend retailers can create a recommendation model based on historical sales data, which provides product recommendations in return. The recommendation is based on products that are likely to be consumed or sold together, depending on the products that the customers currently have in their shopping basket. These recommendations are consumed by LS Central and LS Commerce, and can be displayed on POS terminals, mobile devices, web POSs, and eCommerce sites.
There are three main areas in the LS Recommend module:
- LS Central - contains the setup and source of the data (master data and historical transaction sales data).
- LS Insight - extracts the historical sales data from LS Central and feeds into LS Recommend.
- LS Recommend - prepares the data and calculates the product recommendations.
In LS Central, the historical sales data consist of Trans. Sales Entry, Sales Invoice Line, and Sales Cr. Memo Line. These data are uploaded to LS Insight and processed using Azure Data Factory via Scheduler jobs on the LS Insight server.
The master data consist of Batches, POS Terminals, and Items. They are maintained in LS Central and synchronized to LS Recommend.
LS Recommend lets you specify how far back in the sales history to calculate the recommendation for different item groups. It is defined with an LS Recommend Batch by its Sales History (Days) and each LS Recommend Batch can be assigned to different items or item groups via its Item Scope and the LS Recommend Item Links setup. For more information see How to: Set Up LS Recommend Batches and How to: Set Up Items for LS Recommend.
The LS Recommend POS Terminals and LS Recommend Items contain the master data of POS terminals and items for the recommendation. These master data tell LS Recommend the transaction sales history from which POS terminals and items to consider during calculation. The master data should be updated and synchronized to LS Recommend in a timely manner to ensure the availability and accuracy of the recommendation results. This can be done either manually or via Scheduler jobs in LS Central.
Once the master data and sales history data are synchronized and uploaded to LS Recommend, the Calculate Recommend Batch function is used to trigger the calculation in LS Recommend. Then, the Load Recommend Batch function is used to load the calculated LS Recommend Batches to the Model Reader where recommendations can be retrieved.
After the LS Recommend Batches are loaded to the Model Reader, product recommendations can be retrieved from LS Recommend via POS terminals, eCommerce sites, or other integrated systems. You can set up the system to show the recommended item image, description, inventory, and price in the POS panel display.
Recommendations are based on item(s) in the shopping basket when requested through the following options in LS Recommend Setup:
- Show Recommendation on POS - request and display recommended items based on item(s) in the shopping basket with a configured LS Recommend command button on the POS terminal.
- Show Recommendation on Total - request and display recommended items based on item(s) in the shopping basket with the Total button on the POS terminal.
- Print Recommendation on Slip - request and print the recommended items on the slip based on item(s) that have been purchased.
For more information see How to: Set Up POS Terminals for LS Recommend.
See Model and Recommendation Generation to understand how the LS Recommend Batch Model is created in the cloud, and how recommendations are made with the calculated Model.
Tasks
The following table is a list of LS Recommend related tasks with links to the topics that describe them.
| To | See |
|---|---|
| Configure basic LS Recommend setup. | Basic LS Recommend Setup |
| Set up LS Recommend Batches. | How to: Set Up LS Recommend Batches |
| Set up POS terminals for LS Recommend. | How to: Set Up POS Terminals for LS Recommend |
| Set up items for LS Recommend. | How to: Set Up Items for LS Recommend |
| Schedule master data synchronization. | How to: Schedule Master Data Synchronization |
| Schedule LS Recommend calculation. | How to: Schedule LS Recommend Calculation |
| Calculate LS Recommend manually. | How to: Calculate LS Recommend Manually |
| Set up LS Recommend calculation limit. | How to: Set Up LS Recommend Calculation Limit |
| View the LS Recommend Calculation Logs. | How to: View LS Recommend Calculation Logs |
| Set up LS Commerce Service for LS Recommend. | LS Recommend for LS Commerce |
| View the sales and margin performance information of items recommended by LS Recommend. | LS Recommend Performance Report |
| Understand how LS Recommend Batch Model is created in the cloud, and how recommendations are made with the calculated Model. | Model and Recommendation Generation |