Optimize Dead Shelf with n8n, Google Sheets, Gemini & Slack

Put your dead shelf on a schedule—optimize prime eye-level SKUs with n8n, Google Sheets, Gemini & Slack

This n8n workflow automatically detects “dead shelf” candidates in your planogrammed prime eye-level assortment, validates recommended actions with Gemini, writes an actionable plan back to Google Sheets, and posts a clear daily digest to Slack.

What this workflow does

Built for daily merchandising decisions, it runs at 01:00 (or via manual trigger) and:

• Loads configuration thresholds (e.g., stagnation days, expiry limits, and AI batch size).
• Reads Catalog_Master, Sales_Rollup, Inventory_Snapshot, and Planogram tabs from Google Sheets and joins them into a per-store, per-SKU dataset with cohort stats and a replacement SKU candidate.
• Calculates risk/performance metrics such as days unsold, days to expiry, price index vs category median, run rate, days to clear, and capital at risk.
• Filters to prime eye-level SKUs that have stayed in the zone long enough, have stock on hand, and show low sales over the last 30 days.
• Assigns a recommended action via a rule matrix: liquidate, delist, price test, relocate, or monitor.
• Ranks suspects by capital at risk, sends the top N items to Google Gemini for a structured merchandising decision, and applies deterministic guardrails (including pricing clamping and enforcing delist/replacement rules).
• Creates action tickets (movement, facings, pricing, ERP flags, review date) and upserts them into the Action_Queue tab; posts a summary digest to Slack and records a run audit log back to Google Sheets.

Use cases

• Daily detection and prioritization of dead shelf items for prime eye-level planograms.
• Automated liquidate/delist/price-test recommendations with AI validation and ERP-ready flags.
• Operational visibility through Slack digests and Google Sheets audit logs.

Technical details

• n8n nodes: set, code, sort, limit, filter, and Slack.
• Google Sheets: reads Catalog_Master, Sales_Rollup, Inventory_Snapshot, Planogram; writes to Action_Queue and run audit logs.
• Google Gemini: validates merchandising decisions using structured input for the top N ranked SKUs.

SEO note: Ideal for n8n automation engineers and SaaS operators looking to optimize dead shelf management workflows with Google Sheets, Gemini, and Slack.