Supermarket reaps benefits from electronic shelf labelling

However, cost saving is only the tip of the iceberg, reports Sotiris Michaelides, co-owner of MCC and of St Michaels SPAR and Tops liquor store in Orkney, which have also implemented the new system.

The ultimate benefits, Michaelides says, are:
• The professional look and feel electronic shelf labelling confers on a supermarket.
• The confidence shoppers have in knowing that the price advertised will perfectly and consistently match that at the point of sale. This has led to higher levels of customer loyalty, as shoppers know there will be no discrepancy between displayed price and actual price charged.
• The speed with which prices can now be changed: where a major round of price changes used to take an average of three workers three days to complete, it can now be done in mere minutes. When prices are increased, this has an immediate and positive impact on cash flow.

"Recently, we were able to implement 2,080 price changes in 15 minutes, including 480 promotional items reverting to their standard price, 500 new promotions and 1,100 normal price changes for the day."

The product has the ability to update 50,000 price changes an hour, which translates to a potential 1,500 changes in two minutes; this, compared to up to three days for three workers.

"We can now deploy our people more strategically, rather than having them spend much of their month changing prices manually," adds Michaelides.

"There has also been an unanticipated benefit. If a product is out of stock, a rival rep can easily move a paper shelf label and populate the shelf space with their own product, leaving management unaware of the out-of-stock situation. Our new electronic shelf labels are fixed permanently to the shelves, this cannot happen any more, allowing us earlier visibility into stock levels."