Kroger, leading grocery retailer of the United States, has joined hands with the tech giant Microsoft for its Azure Cloud to redefine the customer experience at its stores.
Two firms, with this partnership, will be jointly marketing a commercial Retail-as-a-Service (RaaS) product to the grocery industry through a connected store experience.
In the midst of a time when big grocery stores are facing challenges from market shifts and ever-increasing threats from Amazon, current Kroger-Microsoft partnership is the latest to a grocery giant teaming up with a tech company to get an edge over these changes. To provide a new experience of high-tech grocery store to the customers, two firms will be collaborating for digital displays, cloud computing and other technology that will result in more convenience for customers as well as employees in the Kroger’s stores.
Kroger’s two stores, one in Redmond, Washington and another in Monroe, Ohio which are close to the headquarters of both companies, are hosting the pilot program. The customers and employees habits to interact with products will be become changed due to use of new electronics with in-store data stored and processed by Microsoft’s Azure as paper lists and tags currently being used for product’s price, new promotions and nutrition information will be replaced with new digital displays.
Changing the place of a product in the store and updating price or promotion of a product could be easily done through these digital displays now which will also change to show the icons of the products matching with the grocery list of a nearby customer and make it easier to find a desired product.
For employees, these displays will be helpful to quickly replenish products on shelves as new pick-to-light system will lit up those areas where a product is needed to be stock on the shelves.
