The Benefits Of Electronic Shelf Labels In Retail

A wireless network solution that is suitable for your needs can provide retailers with the tools they need to successfully apply electronic shelf labels.

ESLs (electronic shelf labels) are increasingly being used in stores that sell retail products to indicate the prices of products. This solution for retailing wirelessly is typically affixed to the front edge of shelves, operates on battery power, and makes use of LCD displays to show the current prices of products to customers.

Electronic Shelf Labels Applying

Importance

Behind the scenes they are maintained by a central console running label management software. Additionally, an electronic gateway transmits any and all changes to the ESL network digital tags. To keep ESLs cost-effective, this network must deliver the requisite speed and range and keep its power consumption at a minimum. Retailers are looking for ways to meet these requirements through the use of IoT-enabled radio frequency (RF) devices.

In reality, a broad variety of retailers including many top global department stores supermarkets, drug stores, and grocery stores are already using ESLs. Furthermore, the ESL market is expanding rapidly: Global Market Insights projects that the industry's annual compound growth rate to be around 16 percent until 2024.

Understanding the Value of Electronic Shelf Labels in the retail industry

While an ESL system is costly initially, it could reduce time and cost for retailers in the long run. A retailer can benefit from the following advantages of electronic labels.

Dynamic Centralized Pricing (or dynamic centralized pricing) The price of all prices can be managed and adjusted by software at a central workstation. The software is often aligned with corporate or regional price fluctuations. This is far more effective than making adjustments manually and it's also much cheaper. Dynamic pricing is also possible that allows prices to adapt to a variety of different factors. Prices can be raised to meet the requirements or take into account inventory shortages; and then drop to reflect the prices of rivals or sell items that are coming to the end of their shelf lives quickly.

In-store Heat-Mapping: If equipped with communication technologies such as Bluetooth(r) Low Energy beacons, ESLs can track how shoppers move through a shop. Tags produce a heat map of the floor plan that highlights areas of high traffic and logging the products they hold.

Automated Inventory Management: Managing inventory can be a huge headache for retailers. Automating this process can result in a huge amount of savings. Integrating ESLs with software for sales management allows retailers to track the level of inventory more precisely and get instant insight into the time when stocks will be in stock. The displays can also be configured to show QR codes that lead consumers directly to an online buying option.

Of course, to realize these potential benefits, an ESL system needs to be implemented on the right technological foundation. As alluded to above the low energy consumption is a crucial condition of ESL cost-efficiency. ESL systems must be scalable enough that they are able to incorporate hundreds or even thousands of connected devices while still facilitating communication between stores of all sizes. With the recent publicized hacks that took place at Target and Home Depot, retailers need to make security a priority when they expand their online portfolio.