Azure IoT for retail
Seamless, smart, and secure retail technology solutions to engage customers, empower workers, and enable the next generation of smart retailing
Enabling smart retail through Azure IoT
Increase efficiency and win your category with digital solutions that build affinity and empower your organization, end to end. The opportunities for digital transformation with the Internet of Things in retail are endless and exciting. Azure IoT for retail delivers operational excellence, an intelligent supply chain, and more powerful business intelligence to enable your organization, and your people to deliver unforgettable customer experiences that drive affinity, create loyalty, and win your category.
Seamless
Azure IoT enables your business to get to deployment rapidly with retail-specific application templates, a selection of certified devices, and the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio from device to cloud.
Smart
Only Azure IoT brings together the intelligent edge with the intelligent cloud to deliver business value that merges advanced retail analytics, AI, and new models of interactivity enabled by Mixed Reality.
Secure
Microsoft and our partners bring decades of industry experience to bear alongside a robust portfolio of capabilities to secure and manage the Internet of Things, from the edge to the cloud.
IoT Signals
Microsoft has committed to investing USD 5 billion in IoT research and the intelligent edge—adding new services and features to Azure IoT for industries like retail, driving business strategy and executive leadership discussions to define success in the age of intelligence. Explore key insights from the IoT Signals report.
Applications of IoT in retail
Discover common IoT scenarios for transforming your retail business.
In-store analytics
Deliver personalized product recommendations based on customer demographics and in-store behavior. Stock the right products in the right places and give employees the ability to make game-changing decisions with data.
Digital distribution and fulfillment centers
Reduce costs, increase efficiency, and eliminate downtime at your warehouses. Digitally connect and monitor key assets and actions across your automated distribution and fulfillment centers to deliver actionable insights.
Connected logistics
Track shipments in real time across air, water, and land with location and condition monitoring, and prevent spoilage, theft or loss with cold chain tracking.
Smart inventory management
Manage product inventory and shelf availability with sensors that automate receiving, product movement, cycle counting, and tracking. Improve customer experience with consistent inventory across physical and web channels.
Security and Safety
Protect your customers and your employees by digitally securing your data and your storefront.
Finding the right IoT approach for your retail solution
Accelerate your build with Managed App platform
Get started building apps with Azure IoT Central—a managed app platform allows you to build apps quickly by reducing the number of decisions you need to make to achieve results. Most of the elements of your solution are already coded and managed, so you can focus on adding industry knowledge and rapidly scaling and connecting devices.
Build from the ground up with platform services
Get the robust building blocks for highly customized and flexible IoT applications with Azure platform services. Explore your options to create and code your own IoT solution—and add and connect devices, ingest, store, and analyze your data with Azure IoT Hub and Azure Digital Twins.
We have you covered with learning resources:
Find a partner
Whether building with Azure IoT services or an IoT platform like Azure IoT Central, we recommend working with one of our certified partners to ensure the best experience, from proof of concept through full-scale deployment.
See a Connected Logistics retail solution in action with Navisphere Vision by C.H. Robinson
The challenges facing global logistics and fleet management continue to grow as more retailers move to just-in-time shipping and warehousing.
View
Inspect
Filter
Monitor
Analyze
Track
Get a global view of your supply chain from city to city and analyze routes, weather, arrival, and at-risk shipments in real time.
Take a closer look at a region that affects your product arrival for a key sales season. Learn about specific sites affected by externalities to re-allocate for potential delays.
Filter by in-transit or at-risk cargo through the left-hand navigation, and then click to view shipment details scheduled for the destination city.
Track specific details on Customer purchase orders and learn about temperature, humidity, tilt, light, shock, and pressure affecting any part of the journey and potential impact to service-level agreements. Set and glean insights on threshold data for each sensor.
Deep dive into specific threshold insights such as light occurrences during the journey. Measure light associated to safe Geo-fence areas to see if someone unauthorized had access to the product.
Monitor shock to see if abrasions occurred between origin and destination and what locations could result in a claim or damage audit.
See retail solutions built on Azure IoT
Improving cooler management with Azure IoT Central
Ajay Lalu, Founder and Director CIRT"It does not matter what type of communication or protocol you are using—Azure IoT Central is able to take that information and show all of the right data in Power BI."
Microsoft logistics team gains supply chain visibility using Azure IoT
Chris Cutshaw, Director of Commercial and Product Strategy TMC, a division of C.H. Robinson"The only way you can gain this visibility is through IoT devices. That's why using Azure IoT Central was crucial for us."
Mars gains in-store display insights with Azure IoT Central
Jason Wood, Global Display Development Head Mars, Inc."When Footmarks was building the solution, the team knew they needed an Internet of Things (IoT) platform that could enable speed, cost-effective offerings, and scale. With Azure IoT Central, the team knew onboarding would be fast and seamless."
Attabotics accelerates delivery times with Azure IoT
Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking"See how Attabotics is using Azure Edge Zones and IoT technologies like Azure IoT Central and Azure Sphere to create 3D robotic goods-to-person storage and retrieval and real-time order fulfilment solutions for its ecommerce clients."
