East of England Co-op boosts labour productivity with roll-out of electronic shelf label solution from Pricer
East of England Co-op reports improved labour productivity whilst boosting customer service delivery in-store with an electronic shelf label (ESL) solution from Pricer.
Having announced the roll-out of Pricer’s ESLs to its entire store estate in March, East of England Co-op now uses the solution, powered by the company’s cloud-based Plaza platform, to centrally manage and control pricing, product information and promotions across all its ESLs.
Eliminating the need for manual updates, the ESLs deliver real-time price and promotions updates, reducing the risk of pricing errors and ensuring accuracy and efficiency in shelf-edge operations. The solution also drives overall store efficiency by enabling store colleagues to focus their efforts on custome -focused and value adding tasks that deliver store performance.
With the new ESL solution now deployed in around 40% of its retail estate, East of England Co-op reports significant boosts to labour productivity, reducing the manual effort of store colleagues in maintaining shelf-edge processes, including printing and tearing label strips as well as replacing paper labels.
Before it was spending tens of thousands of labour hours each year completing manual shelf-edge processes, now it estimates labour time that would have been spent on maintaining traditional paper labels has been reduced by 70%.
This has not only delivered labour productivity and efficiency gains, but it also allows store associates to focus time on customer facing, service oriented tasks to improved customer experience (CX) in-store.
Additionally, the move to ESLs has also helped East of England Co-op reduced store printing costs by 50% as well as saving paper use and waste from traditional physical labels.
Stephen Lamb, Head of Program Delivery, East of England Co-op, comments: “The standout aspect of our ESLs Programme is the collaborative spirit Pricer has fostered within the delivery team.”
“This partnership has navigated the challenges of an intensive change programme, demonstrating resilience and adaptability while exceeding the original scope of price and promotion for tangible benefits. Built on a foundation of trust, the feedback from our Co-op technical teams, business units, store colleagues and Pricer highlights how we’ve worked together to seize opportunities.”
Peter Ward, UK Country Manager at Pricer, says: “We know driving labour productivity in-store is a key focus for retailers, who want to be able to leverage one of their most important and valuable assets – their store staff – to those tasks that drive the most value to customers.”
“Through ESLs, East of England Co-op has freed store associates to serve, deliver efficiency gains and customer experience enhancement, whilst still achieving all the automated operational requirements to effectively merchandise and maintain the shelf-edge.”
2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS
ESLs are a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which are now closed for entries.
The awards, sponsored by Vista Technology Support, Scala, CADS, 3D Cloud, Brightpearl by Sage’s Lightning 50, Business France, and Retail Technology Show 2025, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Key 2024 dates
Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline
Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed
30th October-6th November: Judging days
Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.
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