Company Shop boosts staff productivity with electronic shelf labelling roll out

Surplus supermarket Company Shop has teamed up with tech company Pricer to roll out Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) across its entire estate.

In two of its stores, the ESLs have already boosted labour productivity by 5% as staff focus on customer service rather than manual tasks, such as checking or updating prices.

The not for profit company sells discounted surplus from over 800 brands, retailers and manufacturers to its members in some of the country’s most deprived areas

As a surplus store, its range of shorter shelf-life goods changes rapidly, often multiple times daily, requiring frequent updates to product information at the shelf-edge, it said. 

Its commitment to offering its members the best value meant store colleagues were conducting several manual pricing changes throughout the day - costing significant labour hours.

The installation of ESLs would create operational efficiencies, enabling store colleagues’ time to be used elsewhere within the stores, the supermarket added.

Additionally, ESLs would leverage dynamic pricing to ensure its members always receive the best value prices, while also encouraging sell-through on short shelf-life surplus goods to further reduce wastage, it said.

Gemma Edlin, head of retail at Company Shop, has called the ESLs a “game changer”. 

“Not just for our store colleagues, who have seen labour productivity boosted and their time freed to focus on delivering customer service, but especially for our members.

“Our vision is to create a world where no surplus products go to waste, so with real-time and to-the-second accurate pricing via the ESLs, our members know they’ll always be getting the very best price on offer, meaning more sell-through and less waste,” she said.

Already live in St Helens and Long Eaton stores, Pricer would complete the rollout of its ESLs across all 13 stores by the end of this month, the supermarket added.