Walmart plans chainwide rollout of digital shelf labels

Walmart is expanding its deployment of digital shelf label technology in U.S. stores.

Currently, roughly 2,300 of Walmart’s approximately 5,200 U.S. locations are already using digital shelf labels. The retail giant said it expects the technology, which allows the chain to easily update product prices and eliminates paper tags, to be implemented across all its U.S. stores within the next year. 

Prior to digital shelf labels, Walmart store associates had to ensure that each of the tens of thousands of products carried in its stores displayed a clear, accurate price. With complicating factor such as new inventory, rollbacks and markdowns, pricing updates could take hours or days to complete.

With the digital labels, employees review and push approved, planned price changes through a secure, centralized Walmart system, typically outside of shopping hours so prices remain stable and consistent during the day. This helps stores maintain clear, consistent prices at the shelf that match what is charged at the register. 

Prices are the same for all customers in any given store and are consistent regardless of demand, time of day or who is shopping. Digital shelf labels are designed to help ensure accurate, consistent pricing, while helping associates save time by eliminating the manual task of changing prices and focus on higher-value work, such as customer assistance and maintaining store cleanliness. 

In addition, the digital shelf label system enables associates using a mobile device to activate LED lights on shelf labels to more quickly identify where items need to be restocked. And “pick to light” functionality uses LED guidance to help associates find items faster when fulfilling online orders.

Walmart digital shelf labels operate on a closed system and do not interact with shoppers or collect any information about them.