No More Bar Codes
arutzsheva.org
Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL) are a fast and easy way to update prices of products on the shelf, using remote transmitters, microchips and on-the-shelf displays. With ESL, stock workers need not tag and re-tag hundreds of products and the cashier doesn't need to second guess an incorrect price tag that doesn't match a bar-code.
In developing this technology, an Israeli company has led the way with an infrared, two-way remote electronic shelf label communications system, which ncludes a processor, and liquid crystal display. In addition to a remote method of updating prices on whole categories of products, "smart tags" on individual products can monitor sales and eliminate all need for bar coding.
Last month, reports Israel21c.org, Eldat signed an agreement to supply electronic price tags to one of the largest marketing chains in Europe, with over 1,500 stores in France, the U.S., Poland, South American, Taiwan and Thailand. "The value of the contract, Eldat's largest since the company was founded in 1994," the website reports, "is estimated at over $12 million, Eldat is scheduled to supply two million price tags by June of this year. In South-Eastern France, an entire region of another 34-branch supermarket chain, Lecasud, has committed to the system."
Yossi Smoler, Eldat's president and CEO was quoted as saying, "The independent retailers understand that what is being selected by the leading integrated chains will be a good choice for them as well, and are willing to pay a small premium for a better solution."
Another advantage of the Eldat ESL technology is the ease with which equipped stores can switch between old and new currencies, such as occurred when the European Union adopted the Euro last year. Stores with the ESL system in place made the switch easily, reports Israel21c.org, in one case converting more than a million price labels in under five hours.
So far, Eldat Communication has sold over 3,500,000 ESL systems to leading chain markets in Europe and Japan. As it makes its way to the United States, the price of an individual tag has fallen from $12 five years ago to about $5-6 at present, but managers at major US stores estimate that a $2-3 price will constitute an incentive for American retail chains to adopt the ESL technology. |
