Surplus supermarket Company Shop is rolling out electronic shelf labels to its entire UK store estate of supermarkets.
Pricer ESLs have been installed at Company Shop’s St Helens and Long Eaton redistribution supermarkets, with a full rollout across the retailer’s 13 England and Scotland stores to be completed by the end of this month.
Company Shop – which sells discounted surplus stock from over 800 brands, retailers and manufacturers to its members – offers a rapidly changing assortment of shorter shelf-life goods requiring frequent updates to product information at the shelf-edge.
This meant store colleagues were conducting several manual pricing changes throughout the day. The installation of the ESLs would create “operational efficiencies, enabling store colleagues’ time to be used elsewhere within the stores” it said.
“Introducing Pricer’s ESLs has been a game-changer – not just for our store colleagues, who have seen labour productivity boosted and their time freed to focus on delivering customer service, but especially for our members,” said Gemma Edlin, head of retail at Company Shop.
As well as the operational cost saving, the dynamic pricing capability offered by the technology has also improved pricing accuracy.
“Our vision is to create a world where no surplus products go to waste, so with real-time and to-the-second accurate pricing via the ESLs, our members know they’ll always be getting the very best price on offer, meaning more sell-through and less waste,” she added.
The ESLs - whihch will number more than 20,000 when the roll out is complete - are centrally controlled, and are updated “throughout the day”. The rollout had already contributed to a +5% improvement in productivity, Company Shop said.
“Company Shop has found a smart way to reduce food waste, which supports the fmcg sector and key workers by providing access to good food that would have otherwise been wasted, while also helping to reduce the impact of waste on the environment. And this means it really is delivering a win-win for both people and planet,” said Peter Ward, UK country manager at Pricer.
“With dynamic pricing capabilities, our ESLs mean more Company Shop members can access the best prices available, while store colleagues can control pricing efficiently while also focusing on those service delivery tasks that drive up customer experience and satisfaction,” he added.
ESLs made their debut in grocery more than 30 years ago, but despite widespread use across Europe – particularly in France and Scandinavia – have been slow to make their mark in the UK. However, adoption of the tech is on the increase, particularly in the convenience and discount sectors.
In November, East of England Co-op claimed to have boosted labour productivity by 70% since it began rolling out ESLs in March. In partnership with Pricer, the society has installed ESLs in 48 stores, with the remainder of its estate to receive the tech by spring next year. In March last year, Central Co-op completed the rollout of over one million Pricer ESLs across its food estate.
Asda in December installed 3,000 electronic shelf-edge labels at an Asda Express store in Manchester, working with Pricer rival Vusion Group on a 12-week trial that saw product pricing updates at the Oxford Road city centre store made “in as little as 15 seconds”. Vusion Group also works with M&S, Morrisons and Budgens.
No comments yet