Pricer, the world’s most trusted Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) provider has announced its strategic partnership with ALS StrongPoint, a leading retail technology company, to help retailers cut their store management and operational costs, as inflationary pressures continue to build.
The partnership comes not only at a crucial time for retailers who are looking to protect margins as they battle rising costs across their manufacturing, supply chains and labour costs, but also as demand for technology that powers in-store digitalisation is also rising, both among retailers and shoppers.
Original research of 100 UK retailers by Pricer showed that when looking ahead to their technology roadmaps, 32% of Senior Retail Operations executives placed digital signage and ESL capabilities at the forefront of their 2-year investment focuses for the store. Meanwhile, a separate poll of 2,000 UK shoppers also by Pricer showed over half (57%) want digital engagement at the shelf-edge to improve customer experience (CX) and inform their purchasing decisions.
With the combined capabilities of Pricer and StrongPoint, retailers can reduce store costs by using ESLs to centralise product pricing and promotions, enabling stock to be updated digitally and in-real time to ensure pricing accuracy. And because the labels can provide much greater depth of product and promotional information than traditional paper, both store efficiency and CX is enhanced, as well as contributing towards the retailer’s sustainability goals. Costs are further contained because Pricer’s ESLs do not need in-store WiFi to function and last longer than any other similar product available. In addition, Instant Flash technology identifies stock locations throughout the store, facilitating faster item replenishment and ecommerce order picking and packing.
To deliver these solutions to retailers, StrongPoint will become the strategic distributor and installation partner of Pricer in the UK and Ireland. Pricer has partnered with StrongPoint for over 20 years, making it one of the most experienced ESL distributors in Europe, and is already a distribution partner in Norway, Sweden, Spain and the Baltics. In Norway, where StrongPoint has been installing Pricer since 1999, the market now has some of the highest ESL levels of adoption in the world.
Mats Arnehall, Head of Region Europe at Pricer, commented: “The UK and Ireland have traditionally not been at the forefront of digital adoption compared to our home country of Sweden. Scandinavian markets have always had to deal with higher labour costs and have long understood the added value of Pricer’s ESLs for both cutting costs and creating better customer experiences. We look forward to bringing our world-class solution to UK and Irish retailers via our trusted partner StrongPoint.”
Steve Smith, Director of ALS StrongPoint, commented: “Grocery retailers are feeling the pinch in terms of costs and inflationary pressures, so they need to find new ways to find efficiency savings. Technology is the key to doing more with less and ESLs can help stores to cut costs and create better customer experiences. ALS StrongPoint is proud to be a part of the StrongPoint group which has already done so much to make Norway and Sweden have some of the highest ESL adoption rates in the world. We hope to help put the UK and Ireland on the same trajectory and leverage the teams experience of installing thousands of stores in Norway and Sweden”.
