Kroger and Microsoft in Retail as a Service Deal

America's largest grocery retailer Kroger has partnered with Microsoft to jointly market a solution designed to help retailers use customer insights to create higher levels of personalization, while enhancing store staff productivity.

The Kroger Technology team's system, powered by Microsoft's Retail as a Service (RaaS) product Azure and connected by IoT sensors, has been used to transform two pilot stores in Monroe, Ohio and Redmond, Washington. RaaS will be used to save and process the data generated in stores, near the smart shelves and on Kroger's app. The stores will then introduce the latest generation of EDGE Shelf (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), a shelving system that uses digital displays, instead of traditional paper tags, to present prices, promotions, and nutritional and dietary information.

Using Microsoft Azure AI, EDGE Shelf will connect with Kroger's 'Scan, Bag, Go' product, to create a guided shopping experience for customers. According to Kroger, the EDGE Shelf will enable the company to generate new revenue by selling digital ad space to consumer packaged goods (CPGs) brands - through the delivery of personalized offers and ads based on customer demographics.

In a statement, Kroger said: 'The introduction of the commercial RaaS product offers a suite of capabilities to support KPIs and merchandising plans, collect customer insights, enhance employee productivity, improve out-of-stocks, better the customer experience, and allow for hyper personalization using proprietary technology including the EDGE Shelf'.

Web sites: www.kroger.com and www.microsoft.com .