Labeling Your Retail Shelf Spaces

 Worked this topic  at some length in our lab and with retailers, still evolving.  ... 

Retail advancements 

Electronic shelf labels    can significantly transform a store’s operations with an increasing array of benefits for retailers.

Download this whitepaper to learn how electronic shelf labels are driving pricing systems for retailers around the world. Learn about benefits like:

Providing customers with better product information – With ESL, the workload for retail staff will be lightened, allowing them to focus on better customer service.

Reducing waste by eliminating the need for paper labels – ESLs are environmentally friendly and can save operation costs. Using traditional paper labels means having to maintain printing costs, as well as logistics costs.

Solving pricing discrepancies between the label and the register – By using ESL, retailers can introduce a seamless change in product prices whenever they need. This can save on labor costs and relieve labor shortage pressure due to current global challenges.  .. ' 

Dynamic Pricing with Electronic Shelf Labels

An idea we did lots of prototyping with, shelf tags that could update prices electronically and display information about product.    We tested a number of ideas with consumers.    Seems Kroger was about to roll out the idea broadly.  Infrastructure in store to support it is increasingly common.

Has dynamic pricing hit a rut?  in Retailwire, with further Expert Comment.    by Guest contributor   Ben Unglesbee

Through a special arrangement, what follows is a summary of an article from Retail Dive, a publication providing new and exclusive insights to retail executives and decision makers.

Dynamic pricing — used to match prices in real-time with supply, demand and competitors — hasn’t hit the store level in any significant way, at least in the U.S. Online, dynamic pricing is common, if still not fully embraced or understood by retailers writ large.

One of the main reasons dynamic pricing isn’t more broadly used is that it is incredibly complicated to execute.

In its most advanced form, retailers don’t simply check their prices against competitors per item. “You also compare category to category, you compare common baskets to common baskets,” said Julien Gautier, marketing director of analytics firm ActiveViam. “But after that, you also have a strategy that involves your own brand. So you want places to be consistent with the brand image that you project.” .... " 

Wal-Mart Tests Digital Price Labels

Kroger is testing similar approaches.

Walmart Testing Digital Price Labels, LED Projectors
By Patrycja Malinowska - In ConsumerGoods

Walmart is pitting two different types of digital price labels against each other at two stores near its Bentonville headquarters to see if they can be controlled through programming as quickly as price changes, saving time for employees and providing accurate, real-time pricing for shoppers. P2PI visited the two locations to check out the pilots.

In the bread aisle of its Pleasant Crossing test store in Rogers, AR, Walmart is trialing the more subdued of the two digital price labels: e-ink tags. About the same size as the retailer’s printed paper labels and positioned one-by-one along the shelf, the digital labels cover prices for merchandise that commands a larger shelf area. They appear relatively flat for digital signage, eschewing color for a streamlined look employing black font and a white border. The look is very similar to the digital price labels adopted by Amazon at its 4-Star stores, resembling visuals on an e-book device..... " 

Wal-Mart Testing Digital Shelf Tags

An idea that has been around for a long time, we tested it extensively.  Costs versus value often interfered.  Now both Kroger and Wal-Mart appear serious with broader tests. 

Walmart testing digital shelf tags at 2 locations  in Progressive Grocer

Walmart is testing two types of digital shelf tags in the baked goods section at two stores in Rogers, Ark. Test shoppers sent by market research firm Field Agent preferred the labels to standard ones, but were split in their opinions between the long, full-color LED strips and the smaller digital tags. ... " 

Shelf Edge Improvements

Considerable detail, images and video at the link.   A space we worked in for years at Innovation center and in this blog.   Increased visual scale of displays makes lots of sense.

Kroger Grocery Store Shelves Go Digital with EDGE  April, 2018
EDGE (Enhanced Display for Grocery Environment), includes shelves that are 2 inches and 4 inches high by 47 inches wide. It is a digital shelf solution that supports full color and video. The installations are in Cincinnati, Ohio and Northern Kentucky. It consists of 2,500 shelves. The barriers to roll-out were cost, shelf life, customer acceptance and data integrity. EDGE overcame these barriers to create a system that has strong customer and associate acceptance. That customer acceptance resulted in significant sales lift. .... " 

Kroger to Expand Kroger Edge

We studied many kinds if shelf based technologies, below seem to be the outcome of many of these ideas tested.    It is mentioned in the article that it was developed with Microsoft technologies like Azure, and  that Kroger plans to sell it to other retailers.

Kroger is rolling out a new technology to nearly 200 stores that could change grocery shopping as we know it  By Hayley Peterson in Business Insider

Kroger is rolling out a new technology that will communicate with customers' smartphones and highlight products on their shopping lists. Kroger

Kroger is rolling out a new technology, called Kroger Edge, to nearly 200 stores by the end of 2018, the company told Business Insider.

The technology digitally displays pricing and nutritional information, as well as video ads and coupons for various products.

It will eventually communicate with customers' smartphones and highlight products on their shopping lists as they walk down store aisles — helping them to quickly select items in a sea of identical-looking items.

It will also highlight items that match customers' dietary needs if they have allergies or other dietary restrictions.   .... " 

Pricing Bots

 Saw this experimented with.    With electronic shelf labels.

Are pricing bots a boon or bane for consumers?  by George Anderson   and Discussion.

It’s a common plot twist — a scientist invents a new medicine or technology intended to help humankind, but in the end its original intent is perverted to cause harm. Such may be the case with so-called pricing or shopping bots.

The idea behind the tech is pretty straightforward: an application is created that automates price checks of competitive websites. This allows a retailer to respond almost instantly to price changes made by rivals that could put the company at a competitive disadvantage. ....  "

Beacons and Retail Shelf Labels

We did much work with electronic shelf labels (ESL).  See the link below for much more.  Quite natural to connect them to the beacon idea as part of retail infrastructure.  Combines visual and data transmission..  In the RFID Journal:
Panasonic Adds Bluetooth Beacons to Electronic Shelf Labels
The Powershelf system, which uses inductive coupling to transmit power and data to wireless electronic labels and sensors, now includes beacons to enable stores to provide data to customers on their phone apps. ... " 

Kroger Smart Shelf

In Smartbrief: An idea that combines electronic shelf labels and small shelf edge displays.  Saw this demonstrated by NCR some years ago.

Kroger tests smart shelf technology
Kroger has launched a test of smart shelf technology at a northern Kentucky store that includes touchscreen labels that offer product information. The technology allows store workers to change prices immediately, and eliminating stickers would make more efficient use of employees' time while also providing an "engaging experience for our customers," Kroger spokesman Keith Dailey said. The Cincinnati Enquirer (tiered subscription model)  .....  " 

New in Electronic Shelf Labels: Tweets?

The Venture Lab reports on funding work they are doing with an Electronic Shelf Label  (ESL) startup called Tagnetics.   I had worked with the predecessor of this firm in our innovation labs.  I have also worked with the concept of shelf price labels, testing the idea both in the laboratory with consumers and with retailers.     The idea has been around for some time, but still is not widely implemented.  Due to issues like cost, device maintenance, required store infrastructure and ensuring accurate data. All retailers I talked to were interested, but concerned about these issues.  The potential use of the same infrastructure to get the attention of the shopper, creating a shelf-edge display, or even selling this micro ad space to manufacturers, was often brought up. 

The content of an ESL is far simpler than a store display.  Traditionally just a price and description.  Could this evolve into a tweet at the shelf edge, with tailored, varying messages? 

Read the full article from Venture lab below:

Electronic Shelf Label Systems: Coming To Your Grocer’s Aisle 
In a recent poll, Industry trade publication Progressive Grocer found that independent grocers rank Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) systems as one of the most important technologies for retail stores in the next few years. Some see ESLs as possibly the greatest single change in retail since the checkout scanner. What is an ESL? Electronic Shelf Label Systems or ESLs are used to display product pricing on shelves; they replace the printed paper or vinyl labels that are prevalent today. Typically, electronic display modules are attached to the front edge of retail shelving. With an ESL in place, a retailer can change prices on all products throughout the store from a single location, virtually instantaneously ... "