The price on the shelf is then the price at the till
An electronic shelf label is an e-paper tag on the shelf edge showing the price held in the system. It solves one problem very well: the gap between what the customer reads and what the till charges. It does not solve another, and that is rarely said out loud: a mistake in the pricing system then appears in every branch at once. This page says what they do, where the sum tips over and what comes with them in network and rollout.
Four things paper cannot do
They all follow from one property: the tag is written from the system and not by hand.
- One price, everywhere at onceA change in the pricing system appears on the shelf edge within minutes, in every branch. The gap between the tag and the till is gone, and that is the only reason for buying these that really counts.
- Price changes no longer cost a SaturdayA markdown round on paper is somebody walking the shop with a stack of tags and missing twenty of them. That work disappears, and it is the line the investment is usually earned back on.
- More on the tag than a priceProvenance, allergens, a stock figure or a barcode staff scan to find the shelf again. What fits depends on the size and on what your system knows, not on the label.
- The tag does not give itself awayE-paper only draws power when it changes, so a label runs for years on one battery. It also keeps showing when the connection drops; what you see then is the last price that was sent.
Where it tips over and where it works against you
Two situations where it nearly always adds up, and three that are rarely mentioned beforehand.
Pays off: many items, prices that move
Supermarkets, DIY, pet food, electronics: thousands of items and prices changing weekly or daily. That is where the work that disappears sits, and the sum is the hours spent repricing against the number of labels.
Pays off: when the shelf price is a risk
Where a wrong price on the shelf means a complaint, a refund or a fine, accuracy pays for itself. That is a different argument from speed and it is usually the stronger one.
Watch out: the label corrects nothing
This is the flip side of the promise. The tag shows what the pricing system says. If the price is wrong there, it is now wrong in every shop instead of on one card, and nobody spots the difference any more because it is the same everywhere. Electronic labels make your price management more important, not less.
Watch out: it is one label per item
The cost sits in the number of shelf positions and not in the system around it. At a few hundred items you will not earn the investment back; at ten thousand you will. That is the sum, and you do it beforehand, not after the demonstration.
Watch out: the shelf has to take them
Labels clip into a rail, and old shelf strips, wooden shelving and standalone displays call for different holders or for adaptation. That is fit-out work which appears in no quote and which makes the difference in an older shop.
The labels, the base stations and the rollout, and one boundary
This is the same rollout job as the tills and the screens: many identical actions in many branches.
- The labels and the holdersFrom VusionGroup, formerly SES-imagotag. Size per shelf position, with holders that suit your shelf strips. Which size goes where follows from what has to be on it and not from the catalogue.
- The base stations and the networkThe labels talk wirelessly to base stations in the ceiling, and those hang off the network. In a large or high-ceilinged shop their coverage is a measurement and not a guess, just as with Wi-Fi. That is exactly the work we already do in retail.
- The rollout per branchHanging labels and matching each to the right item is the real work, and it happens in a shop that stays open. Across several branches that is a schedule with a fixed order. In the Netherlands and Belgium our own people do that on site.
- Where our boundary sitsThe pricing system and the till software belong to a third party and the prices in them are yours. We connect the label platform to that system and make sure it receives clean data; we do not decide what an item costs and we do not correct prices. If the source is wrong, no label fixes that.
What goes with this
A shelf label hangs in the same shop and on the same network as the rest.
Questions we get about this
The ones that come up most, answered briefly.
From how many items does this add up?
The cost sits in the number of shelf positions and not in the system around it. At a few hundred items you will not earn the investment back; at ten thousand you will. The sum is the hours currently spent repricing against the number of labels, and you do it beforehand.
Do shelf labels prevent pricing errors?
They prevent the tag and the till from drifting apart, and that is the gain. They do not prevent the price in your system being wrong: the label shows what is there and corrects nothing. A mistake at the source then sits in every branch at once, and nobody spots it any more because it is the same everywhere.
Will they fit our existing shelving?
Usually yes, with the right holder. Labels clip into a rail, and old shelf strips, wooden shelving and standalone displays call for different holders or for adaptation. That is fit-out work which rarely appears in a quote and which makes the difference in an older shop, so we check it beforehand.
Count first, then buy labels
Say how many shelf positions and how many branches are involved and how often you change prices. From that follows whether it adds up, and if the answer is no we say so.
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