Overview of Smart Store Analytics

  • Article

The Microsoft Smart Stores Analytics Power App provides retailers with analytics and insights to grow their smart stores business. A smart store is a brick-and-mortar retail establishment that uses technology to track a shopper’s journey across product discovery, consideration, add-to-cart, and check out. A smart store increases operational efficiency and enhances the in-store customer shopping experience.

Microsoft is partnering with AiFi to enter the autonomous stores market. AiFi operates a large number of autonomous store networks worldwide, works with top retailers as customers and is on Microsoft Azure. Together, AiFi and Microsoft are offering an end-to-end solution called Smart Store Analytics to reduce deployment time frame and costs of autonomous stores.

After a user – typically a store manager – installs the app, the solution pulls the store data from AiFi’s systems. The app uses Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Cloud for Retail AI services to deliver store KPIs, data visualizations, and data science insights on their smart store data.

Retailers can use Smart Stores Analytics to continuously optimize fleet performance, store layout, product catalog, and shelf placement. Analytics are accessible within the UI and outside as a Synapse Azure Data Factory (ADF) pipeline for advanced users.

Features of Smart Store Analytics 

  • Connector to AiFi Data Lake for retailer data

  • Analytics

    • KPIs: Orders, Shopper Count, Basket Size and Checkout time
    • Sales growth vs. share, sales growth v shelf placement
    • Visualizations such as heat maps and customer journey

  • Insights

    • Data Science/ML-backed product recommendations

Note

Average-based Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) exclusively factor in days with recorded data. For instance, in the calculation of the average daily number of customers within a monthly time series, the presence of a day with zero customers can be interpreted in two distinct scenarios:

  • Valid Zero Customers: There might be shoppers present, but none make a purchase, resulting in a valid count of zero customers for that day. This valid zero figure influences the overall average.
  • Assumed Closure/Non-operational Status: If there are absolutely no shoppers on a given day, it is assumed that the store is closed or non-operational. In such instances, the zero count is excluded from the averaging process, as it is perceived as a non-representative day for calculating averages.
Task Description Target audience
Deploy Smart Store Analytics Deploy the solution System admins
Configure Smart Store Analytics Configure the solution System admins
Use Smart Store Analytics Use the app to improve shopper experience Store managers
Customize Smart Store Analytics Customize the app to your unique needs and best practices System admins