VST is now Vazen: the retail data AI platform

VST is now Vazen.

Nine years ago we set out to make store trials virtual. Since then, with a lot of help from our clients, we’ve grown into something wider: the retail data AI platform behind category, shelf and commercial decisions at some of the world’s biggest brands and retailers. Today the name catches up.

Same company. Same team. Same partners. Same nine years of category evidence. Wider frame.

Here’s what changed, and why it’s a step forward for the category teams, retailers and partners we work with.

Nine years of unglamorous work

We started in 2017 with a straightforward idea that store trials should not have to happen in real stores. Testing a shelf or a pack meant weeks of setup, real fixtures and real cost. We built a way to put virtual shelves in front of real shoppers instead, in controlled conditions that isolate what actually drives a response.

That work never stopped. It also grew into something wider. To test shelves properly, we had to ingest planogram and shopper behavioural data at scale from the retailers and brands who trusted us with it. We had to clean it, structure it and run primary research on it to turn it into evidence people could act on.

Somewhere along the way, “Virtual Store Trials” stopped describing the whole company. It described one thing we do well. The curated data layer we had built underneath had no name at all.

What changed this year

For most of those nine years, the hard part was the data. Retail feeds arrive messy, inconsistent and out of date. The value was in the years of curation, cleaning and structuring that turned them into something a team could trust.

This year, that groundwork paid off in a new way. AI became good enough to reason reliably over curated retail data. Point a model at a messy feed and you get confident nonsense. Point one at nine years of structured, row-level-verifiable data and you get analysis your team would usually wait weeks for, delivered in minutes.

That is what earned the new name. Vazen (say it “Vay-zen”) is the layer underneath: the data and AI foundation that shelf and commercial decisions are built on.

One platform, four products

Vazen is the retail data AI platform. It brings retailer data, brand data and open source context together in one secure layer, handling ingestion, curation and security for everything above it. Four products sit on top.

Coplan is where brands and retailers plan together, working from the same shelf and sales data instead of emailing files back and forth. If you knew it as Planogram Publisher, this is the same tool with a name that fits the platform. It is live with Tesco and Co-op today.

Studio is for scenario planning, forecasting and predictive modelling. Model a range change, a new pack format or a shelf reset, and see what it would do to your numbers before you commit to any of it. If you knew it as Fixture Visualizer before, it is the same tool with added capabilities.

Testing is the shopper research work that has been core to us for nine years: virtual shelves and packs in front of real shoppers, with expert-led research when a category authority needs to weigh in. For many clients it remains the initial way they work with us.

Ask Vazen is our latest release. It answers the analytical questions you would usually wait weeks for, in minutes, grounded in curated retailer data. Every answer is traceable to the specific rows that produced it, so your team can verify the evidence before acting on it. Your data stays segregated to you, and we never train models on your data or your queries. We are rolling it out with a small set of strategic pilot clients first.

What shared data changes

The decisions that shape a category are worth millions in either direction: range plans, shelf resets, launches, forecasts, pricing, promotions, packaging. Too many of them are still made from data scattered across hundreds of spreadsheets, half of them out of date, with brands and retailers each working from their own version.

The step forward is shared data both sides trust, applied at a scale people alone cannot reach. When a brand and a retailer plan from the same evidence, the conversation changes. The decisions get better, the execution gets easier, and the shopper gets a better experience at the shelf.

The technology is only half of it. The development, training and ongoing support from our team is what has helped clients win with shoppers, and that does not change.

What this means for existing clients

If you already work with us, nothing you rely on has moved. Same team, same contracts, same pricing, same account manager, nothing to re-sign. Your logins carry across on launch day. Our storetrials.com addresses forward for at least six months so nothing gets missed. From now on, you will find us at vazen.com. Our company and tax registration numbers remain the same, so any commercial agreements are unaffected.

Bring us a question

If you want to see what this changes, bring us one. Pick a category question you have been trying to answer: a range review, a launch readout, a competitor shift. We will show you the evidence behind the answer.

Explore the platform or get in touch to see it work on your own category.