GameStop Is Taking Retail Innovation To The Next Level With The Help Of Microsoft Azure

At the National Retail Federation Annual Convention today in New York City, Microsoft made announcements with GameStop to create an interactive, informative and entertaining shopping experience in an immersive environment.

Soon, GameStop customers will be connected to the services enabled by the Microsoft Cloud, allowing them to browse product choices, share their shopping cart with salesperson’s tablet running an assisted selling application, and even browse products interactively on a big screen Ultra High Definition TV where they can view video game trailers with pristine clarity. When a customer downloads and opts into the GameStop app on their smartphone, they will be able to interact in a whole new way with GameStop marketplace through the use of Azure. Ultimately, the customer and the salesperson can push the desired products to the point of sale (POS) system for order processing and payment.

Read the full press release below.

Press Release:

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GameStop (NYSE:GME), a family of specialty retail brands that makes the most popular technologies affordable and simple continues to expand its roster of technology companies and institutions it is collaborating with as part of its GameStop Technology Institute (GTI) business unit. The company announced today at the National Retail Federation’s 104^th Annual Convention & Expo its plans to use Microsoft Azure to continue to enhance the in-store engagement of its customers in interactive, informative and entertaining ways.

GameStop will be one of the first retailers to use Azure, the innovative Microsoft cloud platform, to stream video game and promotional content direct to customer and store associate mobile devices. As a result, customers will be able to view on their smartphones and Windows tablets content (e.g. trailers, promotional materials, etc.) from GameStop’s catalog of video games, providing a digitally immersive shopping experience within the physical store. GameStop’s store associates will be able to access individual information for those customers who have opted in to receive and share information as part of the GTI app, empowering the associate to provide a personalized shopping experience based on the customer’s unique shopping history.

Other GameStop uses of the cloud platform within its stores include streaming video game trailers to a 4K ultra HD TV, and offering an in-store mobile shopping cart that can be used by the customer to facilitate a faster checkout.

“Microsoft has always been a fantastic and innovative company for GameStop to collaborate with, both in the technology space as well as with their video game consoles and titles,” said Jeff Donaldson, senior vice president of GameStop Technology Institute. “We are continuing to work closely with them to discover and aggressively elevate ways to enhance the retail experience for our customers today and in the future.”

“Our collaboration with GameStop shows the types of things that are possible when Azure is used to enhance consumer engagement,” said Tracy Issel, general manager of Worldwide Retail, Consumer Goods, Hospitality and Travel at Microsoft Corp. “GameStop is utilizing our cloud computing technology in their brick-and-mortar stores in new exciting ways, and demonstrating the type of retail technology applications we can build on Azure moving forward.”

To experience the GameStop and Microsoft retail collaboration firsthand, both GameStop and Microsoft invite interested parties to stop by Microsoft’s booth #2803 at the 2015 NRF Annual Convention and Expo.