“Competing and differentiating yourself in retail involves quality products, price and customer service. You’ve got to be the best, or really good, with at least two of these to remain competitive," Publix spokesman Brian West wrote in an email. "We pride ourselves on offering quality products and premier customer service for our customers.
"Providing a convenient shopping experience can be a big part of customer service, like taking a customer to the aisle for the specific product they’re trying to find, or managing the number of lanes that are open to decrease their wait time at checkout.”
One thing is clear: If Publix wants to stay relevant and win market share, the months and years ahead could be more transformational than all of its previous 87 years combined.
Kroger is rolling out a new technology to nearly 200 stores, and it could change grocery shopping as we know it. Article
The technology, called Kroger Edge, will be installed on store shelves where paper price tags currently hang. It digitally displays pricing and nutritional information, as well as video ads and coupons for various products.
The technology gives Kroger the ability to instantly change prices and activate promotions across its stores, enabling it to undercut sales at other chains and freeing up employees who would otherwise change prices by hand.
"It's an exciting platform for a lot of future innovation," Kroger Chief Information Officer Chris Hjelm told Business Insider in an interview.
In the future, the technology will communicate with customers' smartphones to help them complete their shopping lists.
"As you walk down the aisle, it will highlight the next item for you to pick on your shopping list," Hjelm said.
This means the shelf will light up underneath the product that shoppers are seeking.
Kroger employees recently tested out this function while picking items for customers' online orders.
"They loved it," Hjelm said, noting that it drastically cut down on the amount of time it took to pick and pack the orders.
Kroger expects Edge to be particularly helpful to customers trying to identify a specific brand among a sea of identical-looking items.
"If you are looking for a particular bottle of wine, Edge will show it to you by highlighting it on the shelf," Hjelm said.
The technology can even help customers select items based on their dietary restrictions.
"If you are standing in front of nutrition bars and you are gluten-free, we would highlight for you, in your color of choice, which of the gluten-free bars are good for you," Hjelm said.
Kroger Edge is currently deployed in only a handful of stores. For now, customers must use one of Kroger's handheld devices to communicate with the system.
The company is working on developing an app that will enable customers to take advantage of the system with their smartphones.
Kroger Edge will be available in 200 stores by the end of 2018, but mostly in stores' end caps — the industry's term for displays at the ends of store aisles.
It could also start showing up soon in other retailers' stores. Kroger is marketing and selling the technology, which was developed with Microsoft Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing service, to other retailers globally.
The Kroger Co. is delving into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.
Under a new partnership, Kroger and Microsoft Corp. said Monday that they will jointly develop and market a commercial retail-as-a-service (RaaS) product for the retail industry. Plans call for the solution to be piloted at a Kroger store in Monroe, Ohio, and a QFC store in Redmond, Wash., near both companies’ headquarters.
Related: Kroger banks on burgeoning sources of revenue
Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, the RaaS offering will provide a range of front- and back-end functionality for retailers. The companies said the Kroger Technology team has developed a smart technology system — powered by Azure and connected by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors — that will allow the pilot stores to access a suite of applications in the cloud and quickly add new capabilities. Those include the ability to support key performance indicators (KPIs) and merchandising plans, gather customer insights, boost employee productivity, improve out-of-stocks, enhance the customer experience and allow for hyper-personalization using proprietary technology, such as EDGE Shelf.
“Kroger is building a seamless ecosystem driven by data and technology to provide our customers with personalized food inspiration,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said in a statement. “We are identifying partners through Restock Kroger who will help us reinvent the customer experience and create new profit streams that will also accelerate our core business growth. We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft to redefine grocery retail.”
For example, Kroger and Microsoft said, the stores will be able to introduce “never-before-seen shopping experiences” by using Azure to store and process the data generated in stores, near the smart shelves and on Kroger’s app. That includes the latest generation of EDGE Shelf (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), a shelving system that uses digital displays instead of paper tags to indicate everything from prices and promotions to nutritional and dietary information. Using Azure AI, EDGE Shelf will connect with Kroger’s Scan, Bag, Go app to create a guided shopping experience for customers. Early last year, Kroger said it planned to roll out EDGE to 200 stores.
An innovative, new digital signage solution that integrates seamlessly into your retail environment.
The Kroger Co. is delving into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.
Under a new partnership, Kroger and Microsoft Corp. said Monday that they will jointly develop and market a commercial retail-as-a-service (RaaS) product for the retail industry. Plans call for the solution to be piloted at a Kroger store in Monroe, Ohio, and a QFC store in Redmond, Wash., near both companies’ headquarters.
Related: Kroger banks on burgeoning sources of revenue
Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, the RaaS offering will provide a range of front- and back-end functionality for retailers. The companies said the Kroger Technology team has developed a smart technology system — powered by Azure and connected by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors — that will allow the pilot stores to access a suite of applications in the cloud and quickly add new capabilities. Those include the ability to support key performance indicators (KPIs) and merchandising plans, gather customer insights, boost employee productivity, improve out-of-stocks, enhance the customer experience and allow for hyper-personalization using proprietary technology, such as EDGE Shelf.
“Kroger is building a seamless ecosystem driven by data and technology to provide our customers with personalized food inspiration,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said in a statement. “We are identifying partners through Restock Kroger who will help us reinvent the customer experience and create new profit streams that will also accelerate our core business growth. We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft to redefine grocery retail.”
For example, Kroger and Microsoft said, the stores will be able to introduce “never-before-seen shopping experiences” by using Azure to store and process the data generated in stores, near the smart shelves and on Kroger’s app. That includes the latest generation of EDGE Shelf (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), a shelving system that uses digital displays instead of paper tags to indicate everything from prices and promotions to nutritional and dietary information. Using Azure AI, EDGE Shelf will connect with Kroger’s Scan, Bag, Go app to create a guided shopping experience for customers. Early last year, Kroger said it planned to roll out EDGE to 200 stores.
Other capabilities to be available via the RaaS will benefit store associates. For instance, a pick-to-light productivity solution will provide visual cues to help associates find items in the store faster to reduce the time it takes to fulfill curbside pickup orders. Azure-powered video analytics also will help associates flag and address out-of-stocks so customers can locate products on their shopping list.
Kroger noted that video analytics, too, will enable more personalization of offers and advertisements based on customer demographics, allowing the company to generate new revenue by selling digital advertising space on the EDGE Shelf to consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.
Kroger and Microsoft said future commercial products include Scan, Bag, Go; Virtual Store Manager; sensor network; and connectors to corporate systems such point-of-sale, inventory management, tag and merchandising systems.
The RaaS product is “built by a retailer for retailers” to support today’s retail environment and optimize digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences, the companies said.
The Kroger Co. is delving into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.
Under a new partnership, Kroger and Microsoft Corp. said Monday that they will jointly develop and market a commercial retail-as-a-service (RaaS) product for the retail industry. Plans call for the solution to be piloted at a Kroger store in Monroe, Ohio, and a QFC store in Redmond, Wash., near both companies’ headquarters.
Related: Kroger banks on burgeoning sources of revenue
Leveraging Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, the RaaS offering will provide a range of front- and back-end functionality for retailers. The companies said the Kroger Technology team has developed a smart technology system — powered by Azure and connected by Internet of Things (IoT) sensors — that will allow the pilot stores to access a suite of applications in the cloud and quickly add new capabilities. Those include the ability to support key performance indicators (KPIs) and merchandising plans, gather customer insights, boost employee productivity, improve out-of-stocks, enhance the customer experience and allow for hyper-personalization using proprietary technology, such as EDGE Shelf.
“Kroger is building a seamless ecosystem driven by data and technology to provide our customers with personalized food inspiration,” Kroger Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen said in a statement. “We are identifying partners through Restock Kroger who will help us reinvent the customer experience and create new profit streams that will also accelerate our core business growth. We are excited to collaborate with Microsoft to redefine grocery retail.”
Kroger
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen
For example, Kroger and Microsoft said, the stores will be able to introduce “never-before-seen shopping experiences” by using Azure to store and process the data generated in stores, near the smart shelves and on Kroger’s app. That includes the latest generation of EDGE Shelf (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), a shelving system that uses digital displays instead of paper tags to indicate everything from prices and promotions to nutritional and dietary information. Using Azure AI, EDGE Shelf will connect with Kroger’s Scan, Bag, Go app to create a guided shopping experience for customers. Early last year, Kroger said it planned to roll out EDGE to 200 stores.
Other capabilities to be available via the RaaS will benefit store associates. For instance, a pick-to-light productivity solution will provide visual cues to help associates find items in the store faster to reduce the time it takes to fulfill curbside pickup orders. Azure-powered video analytics also will help associates flag and address out-of-stocks so customers can locate products on their shopping list.
Kroger noted that video analytics, too, will enable more personalization of offers and advertisements based on customer demographics, allowing the company to generate new revenue by selling digital advertising space on the EDGE Shelf to consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.
Kroger and Microsoft said future commercial products include Scan, Bag, Go; Virtual Store Manager; sensor network; and connectors to corporate systems such point-of-sale, inventory management, tag and merchandising systems.
The RaaS product is “built by a retailer for retailers” to support today’s retail environment and optimize digital and brick-and-mortar shopping experiences, the companies said.
“Our partnership brings together Kroger’s world-class expertise in the grocery industry with the power of Azure and Azure AI,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Redmond-based Microsoft. “Together, we will redefine the shopping experience for millions of customers at both Kroger and other retailers around the world, setting a new standard for innovation in the industry.”
The first RaaS offerings — EDGE Shelf, guided shopping, personalized ads and pick-to-light — will be on display in the Microsoft booth (No. 3301) at the National Retail Federation’s NRF 2019: Retail's Big Show in Manhattan, which kicks off this weekend. McMullen is slated to deliver a keynote at the event and share details about the partnership on Sun., Jan. 13, Kroger said.
At Kroger’s annual investor conference this past fall, executives said they aim to grow alternative profit streams to help the company reach its goal of $400 million in operating profit by 2020 under the Restock Kroger initiative to redefine the customer experience.
To that end, Kroger is looking to monetize the huge, rich stores of data amassed from its position as the nation’s largest supermarket company, with 2,800 stores, vast digital properties, millions of daily transactions, and broad technology and analytics capabilities. Executives noted at the investor event that Kroger’s core grocery business — though generating the lion’s share of profits — is expected to see little growth in the coming years. Meanwhile, business through partnerships, media, CPG insights and Kroger Personal Finance has expanded at a 16% compound annual growth rate in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) and is projected at 28% through 2020 and 34% to 2022.