Supermarket chain  Kroger and tech giant Microsoft announced a partnership - one that looks like a move towards grabbing space in next gen grocery. Two Kroger pilot stores - in Monroe, Ohio and Redmond, Washington State - will feature digital shelving displays with product information and real-time price updates.Location-specific data will be stored and processed on Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure. The digital features are aimed to help shoppers find stuff more quickly and smoothly, and to aid workers at managing stores more efficiently.

Kroger mentioned that the service would be available in Scottsdale at its unit Fry's Food Stores for $5.95 with no minimum order requirement for same-day or next-day deliveries. Kroger’s move comes at a time when several U.S. grocery players upping the ante on delivery services.For instance, Walmart, Ford Motor and delivery service Postmates announced earlier this year that they partnering to deliver goods to Walmart customers’ doorsteps, and could even start using self-driving vehicles for the same in future.

A comment from Kroger Co. Chief Executive Rodney McMullen has given GlobalData Retail’s Managing Director Neil Saunders a sinking sense of déjà vu, going back to Eddie Lampert and Sears Holding Corp. READ MORE...

Altered by Amazon’s (AMZN) foray into the grocery and convenience store business, incumbents like Kroger and Walgreens Boots Alliance had no options but to join hands in order stay ahead of the competition in an evolving consumer landscape. With Amazon stepping up its grocery and convenience store game in recent times, Kroger and Walgreens announced their partnership in October.Pharmacies and grocery stores have been searching for ways to beat out the competition, and this is what got these two companies together to stay ahead of the challenge thrown towards them by the Amazon's Whole Foods. In addition to selling Kroger’s branded products in stores, Walgreens will also allow customers to order online from the grocer and pick up the items at the pharmacy chain. Owing to early success of this pilot program, both companies announced a further expansion of the program on Tuesday.

  There will be 2,300 Kroger products at 13 Walgreens stores to start off the collaboration's pilot by early 2019.The selection will be concentrated in dairy, meat, frozen and meal solutions. Customers will be able to order groceries on kroger.com for pickup at Walgreens. This might be seen as an innovative step  by a long-standing grocery company to up the game against fast growing e-commerce players like Amazon which are apparently trying to expand across every consumer retail category possible.