Coming soon: electronic shelf labels

By now we've probably all seen that guy at trade shows, with a booth full of tiny screens showing itty-bitty digital images and mounted to on mocked up supermarket shelves. I think I've come across this tech at pretty much every major industry show I've gone to in the past five years. But I've yet to see a single deployment.

According to some news from BizJournals, that may change soon, thanks to a $52M cash injection by Galleon Group into electronic shelf label pioneer Altierre Corp. And given how cheap tech is getting and how expensive labor (and everything else) continues to become, it looks like the time for such a seemingly-overkill system might finally have come. The article notes:

The technology would eliminate the paper labels that are often changed weekly in grocery stores, freeing up workers and reducing paper waste, says CEO Sunit Saxena. ESL would also eliminate discrepancies between the shelf and cash-register prices and allow the flexibility to make immediate price changes, he says.

"You've got a poor store manager trying to orchestrate the changing prices of 40,000 products, and they just can't do it," Saxena says. "So how do you get the information out there? Through wireless networks."

The system consists of a digital liquid crystal display (LCD) device that sits on the shelves' rail and can be altered from a central computer in the store's office or company headquarters. The system uses secure Wi-Fi to change a price in less than two minutes. The digital displays are powered by batteries with a shelf life up to five years. The system would pay for itself in one to two years by eliminating the cost of paper tags, Saxena says.

While the touted benefit is the ability to change prices faster and more efficiently, there's obviously also the potential to provide additional information (e.g. nutrition info or promotions on food items), as well as more nefarious uses like real-time, demand-based price adjustments that could mean the $3.19 box of Cheerios you put in your cart turned into a $5.59 box by the time you checked out. Sure, nobody says they plan to do that, but you know they're all thinking it :)

No word on when we'll see pilots of Altierre's technology, but according to the company, two major grocers are already testing the stuff out.

Tags: electronic shelf labels, retail media

Tesco testing electronic shelf-edge labels in two stores

Having already installed about 400 of ZBD's electronic label devices at their South Wigston store in Leicestershire earlier this year, Tesco is expanding the trial to a second store near High Wycombe. As the Retail Bulletin notes:

Tesco began experimenting with ESEL for deli items over a year ago and has been testing the ZBD system at its South Wigston store in Leicestershire, for several months. “Staff and customers in the South Wigston store have already embraced the technology - especially the rich content on each display unit,” says Mark Green, head of counters at Tesco. “The ability of instant price updates as well as the amount of additional product information that can be displayed have had a major impact on staff productivity and the amount of food being thrown away.”

While much attention is given to revenue-generating opportunities for digital signage that involve advertising and marketing, this cost-saving and waste-reducing measure is a unique spin on an old trick.

Tags: retail media, electronic shelf labels, shelf-edge advertising