Meet AI Cart Optimizer: Build a Smarter Shopping Cart Around Your Store’s Needs and Budget

At LiquorBee, we’ve spent years building tools to help liquor retailers make smarter purchasing decisions.

From our Dynamic Reorder Points based on sales deficits to our 80/20 Reporting, each tool was designed to help you better understand what your store needs and when to reorder.

Now, we’ve taken those concepts, combined them, and weighted them into one tool: AI Optimizer.

AI Optimizer brings together your store’s sales history, inventory shortages, essential products, and purchasing budget to recommend what you should order, how much you should order, and most importantly, why.

Instead of simply giving you a list of products to purchase, AI Optimizer applies purchasing logic, prioritizes your needs, and provides reasoning behind its recommendations.

You can find AI Optimizer beside the 80/20 checkbox in your Smart Shopping Cart.

🧠 Combining Our Best Purchasing Tools Into One

AI Optimizer builds on two important LiquorBee features:

Dynamic Reorder Points & Sales Deficits

LiquorBee already analyzes your sales activity to calculate how much inventory you need based on demand. Rather than relying on a fixed reorder quantity, our dynamic calculations identify inventory shortages based on how products are actually selling.

80/20 Reporting

Our 80/20 Report identifies the products responsible for the majority of your store’s sales. These are your essential products, the ones you want to make sure stay on your shelves.

AI Optimizer brings these two concepts together.

By combining and weighting your dynamic inventory deficits, sales performance, and 80/20 essentials, we can prioritize purchasing recommendations based on what matters most to your business.

We then introduce another important factor: your purchasing budget.

Reorder Budget Based on Your Store

Every store purchases differently, and we wanted AI Optimizer to reflect that.

The tool reviews your past 90 days of invoice history to estimate your average weekly purchasing budget.

It then looks at how much you have already spent during the current week through recorded in-flight orders and adjusts your remaining purchasing budget accordingly.

For example:

• Average weekly purchasing budget: $4,000

• Already spent this week: $1,500

• Remaining purchasing budget: $2,500

AI Optimizer now knows it has approximately $2,500 to work with when building your recommended shopping cart.

Your purchasing week runs Sunday through Saturday, with the budget resetting every Sunday.

This isn't meant to limit what you can purchase. It's designed to give you a realistic starting point based on how your store normally operates.

How AI Optimizer Decides What to Purchase

Before making recommendations, AI Optimizer evaluates inventory needs across your vendors so it can prioritize products across your entire store.

It then follows a weighted purchasing strategy:

1. Prioritize Your 80/20 Essentials

We first identify your essential products that have inventory deficits.

These are products that contribute heavily to your sales, so keeping them available is a priority.

2. Evaluate Dynamic Sales Deficits

Next, we evaluate your remaining inventory shortages using LiquorBee's dynamic reorder calculations.

This helps identify products that need replenishment based on actual sales demand rather than simply ordering because inventory is low.

3. Work Within Your Remaining Budget

AI Optimizer weighs these purchasing needs against your available weekly budget and builds a ranked list of recommended purchases.

4. Identify Additional Opportunities

If your inventory needs exceed your budget, AI Optimizer doesn't simply ignore those products.

Instead, it separates them into additional recommendations so you can decide whether spending a little more makes sense.

The goal is simple: Prioritize the products your store needs most while helping you make better use of your purchasing dollars.

Recommendations With Real Data and Reasoning

One of the things we're most excited about is that AI Optimizer doesn't just tell you what to buy.

It explains why.

Each recommendation includes information such as:

• Priority Ranking: Which products deserve attention first.

• 80/20 Essential Status: Whether the product is one of your store's essential sellers.

• Inventory Remaining: How much inventory you currently have.

• Recommended Quantity: How much inventory you should consider purchasing.

• Purchase Cost: How much the recommendation will cost.

• 90-Day Sales Revenue: How much revenue the product has generated recently.

• Estimated Two-Week Revenue: Projected sales revenue based on recent performance.

• AI Reasoning: An explanation of why the product was prioritized.

For example, AI Optimizer might explain that a product was recommended because it's an essential 80/20 item, has a significant inventory deficit, and has consistently strong sales.

Our underlying purchasing calculations determine the recommendations, while AI helps explain the reasoning in a way that's easy to understand.

We want you to have more than a recommendation. We want you to have the information needed to make a confident purchasing decision.

Know What Fits Your Budget and What Doesn't

AI Optimizer separates your recommendations into two categories.

Within Your Budget

These are the recommended purchases that fit within your estimated remaining weekly spending budget.

Additional Items to Consider

These are products that may still need replenishment but fall outside your current budget.

Maybe you have a big weekend coming up, a local event, or a product you know will sell quickly.

You can review those additional recommendations and decide whether increasing your purchasing budget makes sense.

We don't want the tool making every decision for you. We want it helping you make better ones.

You're Still in Control

AI Optimizer is designed to work alongside your existing Smart Shopping Cart.

You can review the recommendations, add individual products, or use the Add

All option to bring the recommended selections into your shopping cart.

From there, you can continue reviewing and placing orders through your normal LiquorBee workflow.

Your experience as a store owner or buyer is still incredibly important. You know your customers, your local market, upcoming events, and seasonal trends.

AI Optimizer simply brings more of your data together so you can spend less time figuring out what to purchase and more time running your business.

Try AI Optimizer Today

Head over to Smart Shopping Cart and look for AI Optimizer beside the 80/20 checkbox.

You'll be able to see your estimated purchasing budget, how much you've already spent this week, and a prioritized list of products recommended for your store.

We've taken our Dynamic Reorder Points, sales deficit calculations, and 80/20 Reporting, combined their strengths into a weighted purchasing strategy, and added AI-powered reasoning to help explain the results.

Our goal isn't just to automate ordering. It's to help you understand what your store needs, why it needs it, and how to purchase smarter.

And as always, we'll continue improving these tools based on feedback from the stores using them every day.