With the increasing popularity of online shopping, physical stores are seeing their sales suffer. This is because online pricing can, and often is, cheaper. The reason that physical stores are unable to keep up with e-commerce is because of paper price labels. Because prices are static and need to be changed manually, retailers are unable to dynamically price products and compete with online stores.
In POPAI’s recent mass merchant study, they found that 65 per cent of retailers feel unable to implement all the price changes and promotions they want, and more than three-quarters of them say they would like to make more price changes and promotions to offer customers better deals and prices in store.
Comparatively, online retailers can change millions of prices multiple times a day with the click of a button. Digital Smart Labels™ are a way for retailers to get a leg up on their competition by enabling remote price changes on any shelf, anywhere, in seconds. The immediacy of the changes allows stores to amend price and promotions with the same cadence as online competitors, meeting increasing consumer demand for more accurate, real-time prices and promotions at the shelf edge.
Additionally, Digital Smart Labels™ include much more information than traditional paper labels – from social reviews and competitors’ prices to reward points, bundle offers and much more.
Looking ahead, big data insight, combined with IoT-enabled Digital Smart Labels™, will further improve customer experience, driving powerful in-store customer engagement with augmented reality, Bluetooth beaconing, near-field communication and geo-location technology for product selection.
