Coca-Cola uses AI to improve retailer ordering in Malaysia

Coca-Cola is using AI to recommend which products Malaysian retailers should order and in what quantities through its Coke Buddy platform.

The Perfect Basket feature uses Coca-Cola’s Central Recommendation Engine to analyse previous orders, ordering frequency, seasonality, weather, and purchasing patterns among similar businesses.

Coca-Cola said Coke Buddy currently supports about 39,000 retail outlets across Malaysia. The company describes Coke Buddy as a self-ordering platform that allows retailers to buy products through its app, website, or WhatsApp, with personalised order suggestions and order tracking also available.

Perfect Basket builds on those existing ordering functions by recommending both products and quantities before a retailer completes an order. Retailers can review the recommendations and retain control over what they purchase.

How Perfect Basket guides retailer orders

Coke Buddy already uses previous purchase history to suggest products a retailer is likely to order again. Perfect Basket adds other signals, including seasonality, weather, ordering frequency, and purchasing trends among comparable businesses.

Perfect Basket recommends products and quantities before retailers submit their orders through Coke Buddy. Fulfilment is handled separately by Coca-Cola Refreshments Malaysia or its suppliers under existing sales and distribution arrangements.

Coca-Cola said its sales teams remain involved with retailers alongside the digital ordering system, while retailers retain control over the final purchasing decision.

Coca-Cola recently disclosed usage figures for Perfect Basket following its Perfect Basket, Perfect Ride campaign, which ran from January to April 2026. The campaign encouraged retailers to use the recommendation feature when placing orders and received more than 4,500 entries from over 4,000 retailers in Malaysia.

During the campaign, 83% of participating outlets adopted Perfect Basket recommendations, according to Coca-Cola. The figure applies only to retailers taking part in the campaign, not the full network of about 39,000 outlets supported by Coke Buddy.

Coca-Cola also said participating outlets that followed the recommendations recorded higher sales revenue growth than comparable retail outlets. The company did not disclose the size of the difference or provide detailed performance data showing how individual recommendations affected sales or inventory levels.

The available Malaysian campaign data does not provide figures for forecast accuracy, stock availability, inventory levels, or logistics costs.

Suggested orders extend beyond Malaysia

Coca-Cola has deployed similar suggested-order capabilities elsewhere in its bottling network. In its first-quarter 2024 results, the company said it and its bottling partners had connected nearly eight million customers to B2B platforms globally, while AI-enabled suggested-order capabilities had reached more than three million outlets in Latin America.

Coca-Cola has said these systems combine customer data, external information, and AI to generate predictive order recommendations. Then-chief executive James Quincey said in 2024 that digital ordering also allows retailers to adjust deliveries without waiting for a salesperson to visit.

Coca-Cola has also linked suggested orders to changes in its sales process. Quincey said AI-generated orders allow pre-sales staff to spend less time taking routine orders and more time on account development, while retailers continue to make the final purchasing decision.

Coca-Cola has reported results from earlier pilots using similar recommendation systems. In its second-quarter 2024 earnings call, the company said retailers receiving AI-generated product recommendations based on previous orders and market data were more than 30% more likely to purchase the recommended SKUs in initial pilots. These results did not relate specifically to Perfect Basket in Malaysia.

In a separate demand-prediction project, Coca-Cola combined historical sales data with weather and geolocation information to generate replenishment recommendations. CIO Neeraj Tolmare told Fortune in 2025 that a three-country pilot recorded sales 7% to 8% higher than outlets that were not using the AI algorithm.

Perfect Basket remains available after the campaign. Coca-Cola said it plans to continue developing Coke Buddy and the recommendation feature using retailer feedback and data, while retailers will continue to have access to the company’s sales representatives alongside the digital ordering system.

(Photo by Mahbod Akhzami)

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