The sensory nerve ending.
A shopper who can't find a product logs it in under a minute: the product, the store, and whether it's out of stock or never carried at all. Raw, first-party demand signal from the market edge, the thing POS and loyalty data structurally can't see.
Open the capture appA shopper describes the product they couldn't find by voice or by typing. No app download, no account required to start.
Auto-detect or enter the store address directly, so every signal is tied to a real, specific location, not a vague zip code.
Product, store, and issue type (out of stock vs. never carried). The entire flow is built to be fast enough that shoppers actually finish it.
When enough shoppers request the same product at the same store, it becomes a campaign: a visible, aggregated signal a retailer can act on, not one lone complaint.
Afferent Signal is the capture layer of the nervous system, and it's white-labeled: any supplier can run it under their own brand, feeding the same processing underneath.
What happens to a signal after it's captured
A submission is owned by Afferent Signal and shared with brands and distributors to advocate for stocking the product. That's the explicit consent every shopper agrees to before submitting. From there it's relayed to Afferent Synapse for enrichment with store and trade-area context.