Digital Tags to Reduce Grocery Store Pricing Errors

As a retail manager, you can’t help but notice that many grocery store shoppers are developing a distrust of pricing technology. They’re becoming increasingly vigilant as shelf tags tout one price and the store’s computer registers another—usually higher.

 

If you run a big-box grocery store, you place nearly 5,000 items on sale every week, while simultaneously taking as many items off the sale roster. This places a huge burden on sales clerks charged with printing out new price labels and attaching them to corresponding product shelves. 

 

The solution? Place wireless, battery-powered digital price tags on every shelf. When an item goes on sale, the price tag is instantly and automatically updated via the store’s network. No more mismatches between shelf and checkout counter. And far less work for clerks, whose time can be better put to use reducing lines at checkout counters.  

 

Is the cost worth it? Altierre, a digital tag and sensor maker based in San Jose, California says that setting up a store with as many as 25,000 tags (at $5 per tag) would result in a labor-saving ROI in two and a half years. Altierre’s wireless technology can control 40,000 price tags--far beyond the capability of standard WiFi. The tags are also energy stingy with batteries that last for years, instead of weeks.

 

At this point, only Kohl’s has adopted Altierre’s technology, placing large-format LCD screens on countertops and above clothes racks. Sunit Saxena, Altierre’s chief executive, says many grocery stores are reluctant to install the new tags. “They’re treading carefully because the fear is, they’ll put 30,000 of these in a store where people are used to seeing paper and it will be a drastic change,” said Saxena. “They worry that their sales will drop.”

 

That said, the problem remains worrisome and most ubiquitous in many grocery stores. “If you make 10,000 price changes and you have 1,000 stores, you have 10 million instances,” said Chris Donnelly, a retail consultant and managing director of Accenture. “Even if you get the right label in the right place 99 percent of the time, that leaves 100,000 misplaced labels.”

 

In addition to correct pricing, digital tags can also provide such useful product information as easy-to-read salt, sugar and fat content—often buried in nearly invisible “mouse-type” on many product packages.

 

If you’re a retail manager, it’s important to remember that while digital tags work best as small, accurate price and information labels, they should not try to compete with larger sales signs and banners. 

 

Image courtesy of Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net