Gain of time

Stef: “A shop needs to be up-to-the minute with new products, decoration, but above all with its infrastructure. That’s why electronic shelf labels were the logical next step in automation. We were looking for gain in time on the work floor, especially the daily price changes of fruit and vegetables and the related change of new shelf labels needed to be quickened, and this could only be achieved by finding an alternative for the daily change of paper labels. We also knew that we could improve the correctness of the prices at the checkout and the prices in the shelves. The price in the system guarantees to be the same as the one on the label. A factor which should not be underestimated, considering this being the hobbyhorse of the inspection.”

Less work

The Spar supermarket in Vlimmeren offers no less than 5,500 different articles. The article prices often change, but also the weekly promotions need to be informed to the customers. ”Changing paper labels used to take us two hours per week, which can now be spent to things that are more important,” Stef continues with enthusiasm.

Operation of the systeem

We asked Stef to tell us about the operation of the electronic shelf labels: “Lambrechts nv still sends its scanning information to our supermarket in the same way. The SDP software application picks up the price changes and processes them in the central unit into a format that is sent to the shelf labels by means of radio frequency. In other words, when we agree to change an article price, the new price or promotion will be sent to the cash register and labels within a 30 seconds’ time span.” ”For new articles, we use a handheld scanner, which also functions ridiculously simple: you display the article in the shelf, attach an unlinked label to the shelf, scan the article barcode and the label. The label will be updated with the article info within 30 seconds. Technically it might be fairly complex, but for the user it is a piece of cake.”

Customers’ reactions

Stef: “We’ve heard many positive reactions from our customers. They do not only consider the labels to be beautiful, but are also enthusiastic that we follow the newest technologies. The lay-out of the labels has been set in consultation with SDP. This way we can decide what will be displayed and in which font size.”

Why SDP

Stef explains why they have chosen the electronic shelf labels of SDP. “The choice was not so hard. SDP already has many references of customers where electronic shelf labels display correct prices every day. And in addition the system is compatible with our POS system of SDP.” SDP has developed a system that can be managed (price changes, promotions, new articles, ...) from the backoffice application, because a similar high-technological system needs to be transparent and simple for the retailer.

Do not hesitate to contact us for a non-binding demonstration in your store.