If you’ve been to a store in the past year or so, you may have noticed something different about the way that prices are displayed. Increasingly, retailers are ditching traditional paper price tags in favor of digital ones. While this change may seem insignificant, it’s actually having a major impact on the retail landscape—and not just in terms of how prices are displayed. Here’s a closer look at how digital price tags are changing retail as we know it.
Faster Price Changes
With traditional paper price tags, making a change—even a small one—is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. First, someone has to print out new tags for each item that needs its price changed. Then, someone has to physically go to each item and replace the old tag with the new one. With digital price tags, however, changes can be made instantly—and remotely. That means that if a store needs to mark down an item quickly, they can do so without having to send someone on a scavenger hunt throughout the store.
More Accurate Price Changes
Paper price tags are also susceptible to errors. Let’s say a store prints out new tags but doesn’t have time to put them on everything before running out of ink. As a result, some of the items end up with two different prices—the correct one and the one that was printed on the tag before it ran out of ink. Oftentimes, these kinds of errors go unnoticed until it’s too late and customers have already been overcharged. With digital price tags, though, all prices are stored in a central database, which eliminates human error and ensures that every customer pays the correct amount for their purchase.
Advantages of Using Digital Price Tags
In today’s competitive retail landscape, storeowners are always looking for ways to streamline their operations and save money. One way to do this is by switching from traditional paper price tags to digital price tags. Digital price tags have a number of advantages over their paper counterparts, including the ability to update prices in real-time, the elimination of the need for physical inventory, and reduced labor costs. Let’s take a closer look at each of these advantages below.
Updating Prices in Real-Time
One of the biggest advantages of using digital price tags is that they can be updated in real-time. This is perfect for stores that frequently have sales or clearance items where prices need to be constantly updated.
Eliminating the Need for Physical Inventory
Another advantage of digital price tags is that they eliminate the need for physical inventory. With paper price tags, storeowners need to physically count each item in their store and manually update their pricing accordingly.
Reducing Labor Costs
In addition to saving time, digital price tags can also help storeowners reduce labor costs. Because digital price tags can be updated remotely, storeowners no longer need to dedicate staff members to constantly changing prices throughout the day. This frees up employees to focus on more important tasks, such as helping customers or stocking shelves.
Conclusion:
Digital price tags may seem like a small change, but they’re actually having a big impact on retail stores—for better and for worse. On one hand, they make it easier for stores to keep prices accurate and up-to-date. On the other hand, they require an initial investment and can be vulnerable to technical glitches. Overall, though, the pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to digital price tags—and we’re likely to see more and more stores making the switch in the years to come.
