Online stores have had a head start when it comes to using technology to create good and effective shopping experiences. Fygi's philosophy is to give physical stores the same opportunities as online shopping.

Fygi's Scan Pay Go solution lets customer scan a unique QR code at the entrance of a store to activate Fygi. Inside the store, the customer scans the barcodes on the items to check price and product information, and press "buy" to buy the item. Payment is done directly on the phone, before checking out at a check-out station at the exit. The solution also has several other innovative features, such as allowing customers to get help from the staff when they are in a dressing room.

Scan Pay Go is built as a "cloud native" service; a service built exclusively in the cloud. This offers several advantages in terms of scalability and simpler operation and development.

Until now, Fygi has run on the cloud platform of one of Microsoft's competitors, but now the service is being moved to Microsoft Azure. Although the technical capabilities of the Azure platform played a part in the choice, Microsoft's partner ecosystem was the main reason for the change.

– We want to be part of Microsoft's partner ecosystem. This is something the other cloud providers are missing. A small company like Fygi is not able to do everything itself in-house, but by working with partners through Microsoft, we can scale up our business much faster, says Madeleine Østeby, VP Channel Sales at Fygi.

– We see them as a very important partner for Microsoft

Retail Industry Lead in Microsoft Norway, Ole Torsvik, believes the potential for the solutions Fygi offer is enormous.

– The pandemic has moved consumers' digital shopping habits 10 years into the future, and as we know, online sales had an enormous growth during the pandemic. We have seen stores embrace new business models to meet customers' expectations and needs, such as contactless payment and the opportunity to pick up goods outside the store, says Torsvik.

Torsvik says that partners are important to Microsoft, and that the company is constantly looking for innovative industrial solutions and services they can offer through the Azure platform.

– We like Fygi's philosophy of giving physical stores the same opportunities online stores have. With customer data that provide insight, queue-free shopping, seamless customer journey and one of the best solutions for product information and payments, we see them as a very important partner to be able to give stores what they need to meet future challenges, says Torsvik.

From left: Madeleine Østeby, VP Channel Sales i FYGI, Linnea Egebjerg, Enterprise Channel Manager at Microsoft and Sherina Rendini, ISV Breadth Partner Development Manager i Microsoft.

Østeby says that some stores fear self-service solutions like Fygi can lead to more shoplifting and loss.

– We have worked with experts in behavioral psychology when we designed the solution, and the customer knows that there is a chance to be selected for a random control. Additionally, we are developing FygiEye, which is a hardware-based sensor that uses in-house developed software to register all items that are about to leave the store – and whether the items have been paid for, says Østeby.

She says that building the solutions on Microsoft's Azure platform gives them flexibility and the opportunity to innovate quickly, and that it has been important to develop on a platform that makes it easy to scale the solutions as Fygi grows.

Enterprise Channel Manager at Microsoft, Linnea Egebjerg, says it is important to note that it is Microsoft’s partners who build the solutions, while Microsoft delivers the hosting platform.

– Partners are incredibly important to Microsoft. We are constantly looking for innovative industrial solutions, and retail is one of the industries we invest heavily in. It is valuable for us to be able to have a solution like Fygi in the bag when we are out with our customers talking about the retail of tomorrow and how we can be part of efficient stores, says Egebjerg.