The automated technology and supply dominance from giant retailers and online shopping have made the business environment more competitive than ever for small and medium business owners. SMBs must focus on innovation to survive. A primary innovation to modernize SMBs is electronic shelf display ESD systems.
Digital price tags and electronic information displays enable small to medium-scale retailers to modernize to improve operational efficiencies, better customer service, and regain competitive position. Without the high operational and technical costs usually associated with enterprise-class technology. In this article, we discuss the business case and operational integration of electronic shelf display networks for small and medium businesses.
Confronting the Unique Operational Hurdles of SMB Retail
Small and medium retailers function in a specific environment where the lack of efficiencies poses particular challenges first and foremost being the manual updating of paper price tags which consumes the limited human resource available and takes staff away from customer service, controlling the inventory, and other activities that produce sales.
Pricing inaccuracy, a frequent scenario in these manual systems, eats away at already slim profit margins and erodes customer trust. Also, a loss of pricing intelligence makes SMBs lose out on their greatest advantage garnered from their ability to adapt quickly. Losing the ability to quickly counter a competitor’s sale, run an impromptu promotion to clear off seasonal stock, or manage demand priced time promotions during peak hours is a huge loss. An electronic shelf display system offers these businesses a solution to these challenges. Automating the most time and error-prone task in store operations.
Flexible and Affordable Solutions Customized for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises
Responding to such demand in the market, some technology companies identified the small and medium businesses segmentation and deployed tailored electronic shelf display technology to serve these businesses. These systems are designed to be plug and play. They are deployed with management cloud software that does not require any IT skills, and they are programmed on a subscription basis to turn a high level of cap ex into an operex. The retailer may want to start with a particular area of interest, such as the Dairy or on the Promotion or even New Products to prove an ROI before a wider implementation. The devices are also affordable, long-lasting, energy-saving, and are equipped with screens that are easy to read. The primary modern electronic shelf display systems serve as more than simply a digital price labels. They serve as an information level, enabling the small and medium businesses the opportunity to convey an image that they are modern and professional.
Assessing ROI from a Purchase Decisions on an SMB electronic shelf display system
In determining business profitability, SMBs take a keen interest in ROI calculations. Investing in an electronic shelf display system ROI proves to be undoubtedly worth it. The most direct savings stem from reclaiming the labor hours (dozens each month) that go to the printing, sorting, and manual sticking of paper labels. This can be explained in savings in labor and, more importantly, allowing staff to higher value activities. There will be no more pricing errors that cause margin leakage and the lower service incidents that damage customer reputation. There is an increase in the velocity of sales due to the ability to execute dynamic promotion and molds competitiveness. If all these are estimated for the next 3 to 5 years, the labor savings, errors will also increase. The system can be viewed, not as a cost, but as a profit protection and revenue generating system.
Ensuring Seamless Integration with Existing SMB Tech Stacks
For most SMBs, adapting to new technologies is disruptive. As such, the optimal electronic shelf display solution should integrate, rather than disrupt, existing workflows. A non-negotiable is seamless, bidirectional synchronization with the company’s Point-of-Sale (POS) and inventory management system. This integration ensures that price changes made at the shelf are updated at checkout and that all changes are accurate and trust is maintained.
Top tier players targeting the mid-market achieve this through pre-built partnerships with numerous SMB-centric POS players or at a minimum, secure and well-defined APIs. This method ensures that the electronic shelf display system becomes an extension of the retailer’s existing digital ecosystem, all controlled from a single dashboard, to achieve a seamless vision. The objective is to create a frictionless ecosystem where the technology is unobtrusive and elevates the owner rather than shifting admin burden.
Future-Proofing the Business While Improving Customer Engagement
With the integration of an electronic shelf display network, an SMB gets an earning opportunity, and also gets a foundation that offers digital capability for all future transformations and growth. In addition to listing prices, the display can show QR codes that link to detailed product information, procurement and production stories, recipe ideas, and customer reviews, thus enriching the shopping journey and alleviating the pre-purchase qualms.
They can be configured to show real-time stock levels, which saves useful time for both customers and staff. The network can also serve additional locations or product categories…and this architecture supports the SMB to adopt future retail technologies for digital customer engagement, for instance, a mobile app that offers bespoke loyalty rewards, or the simplification of omnichannel customer service offerings of “click and collect.” A shopper who is digital savvy will instinctively link the digital shelf with a retailer that is organized, and values their time and attention.
Conclusion: Strategic Technologies to Differentiate Yourself
When small and medium retail businesses undergo digital transformations, they do so without the expectation of ever reaching the digital processing capabilities of big-box competitors. By employing smart technologies, they can magnify their strengths, Streamlined systems that digital display and shelf technologies improve, tackle the operational difficulties of small and medium businesses including employee workloads, working pricing, positive variances and operational accuracy.
These technologies deliver positive ROI and can be worthy of the bottom line. These systems can modularly integrate and are designed to be deployed without friction. SMBs can use these operational digital technologies to modernize their brands and improve the fragmented dual and multiple use spaces of their in-store environments. Deploying an Electronic shelf display network technology in your business supply chain mitigates the supply chain risks of small independent competitors and paves the way to ensure that these independent retailers will do more than survive in the digital future of retail.