BC Business
With tariff uncertainty, Merchkit co-founder Bijan Vaez says his AI tool is streamlining back-end processes to save retailers time and money
In an economically confusing time rife with promises of U.S. tariffs, Canadian retailers and small businesses are looking to save money where they can.
“We have so much uncertainty in customer and consumer behaviour. I think retail spending overall is quite uncertain [as to whether] it’s going to go up in the next few years, especially with tariffs,” says Bijan Vaez, co-founder of Merchkit, a new AI merchandising and product catalog management tool for businesses. “Retailers are stuck in, okay, what do we do? We can’t just convince people to buy more because they’re not going to. So can we be more targeted and more specific and more effective?” he says.
Recently backed by $2 million in pre-seed funding, this Vancouver/Toronto-based startup helps retailers spend less time on back-end processes. “We are trying to be the source of product data for every single product that a retailer has on their shelves,” Vaez says.
This database is the core of Merchkit’s product, Vaez explains. Though similar companies have been around for over 20 years, it’s the AI component that makes Merchkit unique. “We can leverage AI, not just to populate your database and clean it up and make sure product data is useful for the end consumer,” he says, “But we can actually use the product data to power all sorts of downstream work you’re doing internally.”
Following his experiences at Browze and ProductShots.ai, Vaez noticed how much time and money were spent just organizing retail back-end operations. “Every time we have this one task that we want to do, we’re spending more time figuring out which team is going to use what tool to get this done, rather than just doing the work itself,” he says.
Fast forward to working with co-founder Rob Hayes and founding engineer Vasil Damyanov, and Merchkit was ready to test out—starting with six enterprise contracts. Those early customers saw product launch times cut from weeks to minutes, reducing operational costs by up to 50 per cent. “Because of the impact we were able to drive for them so quickly, one of our early customers gave me a board advisor seat on their company. The other one is actually an angel investor in Merchkit as well. So that was really good validation for us, that we’re working on a big enough problem for them,” Vaez says.
It’s a problem that Vaez says is especially pertinent. One of Merchkit’s early customers, Western Canada’s Trail Appliances, asked the team about easier solutions to distinguishing products in their catalogue as made in Canada versus the U.S., as well as knowing which products would qualify for potential tariffs. “This is a really good, natural fit for AI because in the normal scenario, they have a couple thousand products that they stock and they would have to call up every single manufacturer, ask them for their parts list, cross reference it with the tariff rules, and figure out how they have to classify it,” Vaez says. Merchkit was able to automate the process, filling their back catalog with the relevant manufacturing information.
“The part that we’re really excited about is [that] we can actually consolidate a lot of these tools and simplify the work that needs to be done at the end of the day,” Vaez says. “This is what true AI should be, we are removing all the grunt work from people’s lives so that humans can actually do the creative work, the strategy work.”
Merchkit is now widely available for retailers to book a demo and subscribe.