Electronic Shelg Tags: Are they worth it?

 It has been a good 4 or 5 years since I last looked at digital or electronic shelf tags as a replacement for paper shelf tags.

I met last week with a electronic shelf tag vendor and was pretty impressed.

Not only has the cost come way down, but the capabilities of the latest generation of electronic shelf tags goes way beyond just showing the price.

Some cool things that I learned:

• battery life is 8 to 10 years
• they have a secure mounting to prevent theft or swapping of devices
• they come in a huge variety of sizes and mounting options for just about any retail stores needs
• you can sell ad space to suppliers
• you can even promote products and services like a loyalty program on the device
• you can get devices with blinking lights to help customers or even delivery drivers find the correct product
• integration to POS systems makes updating the devices a breeze

All in all, the ROI on the up front cost against labour savings, theft prevention, mislabeling of products, and advertising is around 6 to 12 months.

The ongoing monthly subscription is based on the number of devices so smaller retailers can benefit without paying as much as a larger retailer.

 I'm liking what I learned!

Contact me if you have real world feedback or interest in electronic shelf tags for your store: kevinantosh@gmail.com or 208-340-5632