Microsoft recently launched a preview of a cloud service called Smart Store Analytics in collaboration with AiFi. This startup aims to enable retailers to deploy autonomous shopping technology at a low cost. This release comes in a report from TechCrunch.
Smart Store Analytics, part of Microsoft's Cloud for Retail product suite, provides retailers with AiFi's shopping and operational analytics for their fleets of "smart stores."
Introducing Smart Stores
AiFi is well-known for using AI technology to improve the security of "smart stores." Shoppers can have a quick and easy shopping experience with AiFi's advanced tech cameras by using their credit card and the respective app. According to reports, the technology is already being used in a chain of grocery and convenience stores and sports stadiums.
How does the technology work? AI-powered computer surveillance tracks shoppers and detects which products are taken off the shelves. Customers can then leave the store without having to check out. The app will send receipts to them within minutes. How convenient is that?
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If you think that this sounds familiar, you are correct. The technology is comparable to Amazon's Just Walk Out. Digital video captured by AiFi's cameras feeds a computer vision algorithm that recognizes shoppers' behaviors, including when they remove specific products from the shelves.
Optimizing Shopping
After being installed, Smart Store Analytics, co-developed by the Polish convenience store chain Zabka Polska, pulls store data from the AiFi platform to provide insights that allow retail managers to adjust store layouts and inventory better.
Smart Store Analytics displays foot traffic as a heat map and tracks the average amount of money each customer spends to show how much customers browse, interact with products, and move through aisles. The service also tracks customer dwell times and the "unit sales-to-shopper height" ratio to pinpoint the best shelf placements.
With Smart Store Analytics, TechCrunch tells us that AiFi will handle store setup, logistics, and support. At the same time, Microsoft will deliver models for optimizing store payout, product recommendations, inventory, and so on.
Polish store chain Żabka plans to use Smart Store Analytics in its 50-plus "Nano" stores to predict individual store demands, build ordering schedules for replenishment, and react faster when a product is out of stock.
Microsoft and AiFi say that the service doesn't use facial recognition or biometrics. Instead, as customers enter retail stores, a virtual version of them is made.
More from AiFi
In August 2022, AiFi announced it had reached a major milestone: 80 AiFi-powered retail stores were open worldwide. This mark event showed that the company had the best way to scale its platform without using weight sensor shelves.
AiFi has already worked with major technology companies and retailers like Verizon, Microsoft, Carrefour, and ALDI. It has also partnered with Compass Group, Sodexo, Choice Market, and Zabka Group to set up the most camera-only, computer vision-powered stores in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
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