Electronic Shelf Label Companies
What they do and why they matter
Electronic shelf labels (ESLs) let stores change prices instantly without printing new tags. Most ESL systems you see today – from grocery chains to electronics retailers – rely heavily on e-paper displays and wireless communication. Using these technologies, retailers can update thousands of price tags in seconds and keep pricing accurate across all locations.
History Today’s Market Who Uses Them How They Work Next Steps
Electronic Shelf Label History
The first electronic shelf labels appeared in the 1990s, but ESLs have become more popular today thanks to falling hardware costs, better battery life, and improvements in display technology and wireless infrastructure.
Early systems in the 1990s explored topics like LCD displays and infrared communication. In the 2000s, major European retailers took interest in this type of technology and began testing e-paper solutions to reduce labor costs. For example, Metro Group completed pilot programs in Germany in the 2000s. And Pricer launched widespread ESL deployments in 2005, long before Amazon Go or cashierless stores were making headlines.
This early work paved the way for the automation and dynamic pricing that we see in retail today, including omnichannel systems and inventory management platforms that can be designed to complement and augment store operations.
While tech enthusiasts and retail futurists depict ESLs as part of fully automated stores that eliminate all workers, the current evolution of this technology isn’t that dramatic – or quite that complete. Instead, ESLs have evolved to provide many specific benefits in every retail segment. Keep reading for examples in supermarkets, fashion and more.
Today’s ESL technologies have made the benefits of digital pricing clear to a growing number of retailers. IoT-connected labels are showing up inside many existing store formats, from discount chains to luxury boutiques. The fast adoption of ESLs has also raised questions and concerns about price discrimination, consumer trust and data privacy. As a result, transparent pricing and ethical retail discussions are becoming crucial in every market.
1990s–2000s
LCD Systems
Early work with liquid crystal displays stirs excitement for “digital price tags.”
2000s–2010s
E-Paper Adoption
E-paper technology becomes popular.
2011–2020
NFC Integration
Near-field communication breakthroughs drive ESL expansion.
Present Day
Color Displays
Color e-paper displays, a game-changing tech, soar in popularity.
What are multi-color ESLs?
“With color electronic shelf labels, we’re entering a new era of retail communication,” says Marcus Chen, a retail technology manager at DisplayCorp.
Color ESLs display promotional content and product information beyond simple pricing. Hear Chen discuss real-world examples of color ESL deployments across retail formats, including use cases using three-color displays, promotional badges and product comparison features.
Learn about the costs and benefits of this new frontier in retail tech.
Why are electronic shelf label companies important?
Eliminates manual price changes through automation. Instead of printing paper tags, electronic shelf labels update frequent, high-volume pricing tasks. And they do so reliably and without errors. Of course, humans are still essential to set pricing strategy and manage promotions.
Adds digital capabilities to existing stores. Many retailers you already shop at will be improved with electronic shelf label capabilities, much like self-checkout was added as a feature to a new generation of store layouts. Dynamic pricing, promotional displays, flash sales and inventory alerts can be combined with large amounts of sales data to improve many retail operations. Upgrades in stores and warehouses, range from price optimization software and stock tracking to customer analytics.
Adapts through cloud-based updates to let the data drive the pricing. Electronic shelf labels find opportunities and patterns in sales data so that pricing algorithms can optimize revenue. Just as a system can adjust prices based on competitor data, it can calculate what discount to offer next for slow-moving items. And the labels update when given new pricing rules.
Analyzes more and deeper data using backend systems that have many integrated sources. Building a price optimization system with five data inputs used to be complex. All that has changed with incredible cloud infrastructure and retail analytics. You need lots of sales data to train pricing models because they learn directly from transaction patterns.
Achieves incredible efficiency through integrated systems. For example, your experiences at Whole Foods and Carrefour are all based on ESL automation. And these systems keep getting more efficient the more stores deploy them. In the fashion sector, ESL techniques from RFID integration and inventory tracking can now be used to identify out-of-stock items with improved accuracy.
Gets the most out of pricing data. When labels are cloud-connected, the sales data itself is an asset. The insights are in the data – you just have to apply ESL systems to find them. With this tight relationship between pricing and ESLs, your sales data becomes more important than ever. If you have the best pricing strategy in a competitive market, even if everyone is using similar hardware, the best strategy will win. But using that data to price responsibly requires transparent practices. And that means your ESL systems should be ethical, fair and consumer-friendly.
Electronic Shelf Label Companies in Today’s Market
Leading ESL providers
Is dynamic pricing always fair? Do ESLs need human oversight? What will retailers do next? Major ESL manufacturers like SES-imagotag, Pricer, and Displaydata are expanding their market presence with diverse product lines, including standard labels, promotional displays and shelf-edge solutions.
Your journey to ESL implementation
Our research shows that retailers that embrace ESL technology are seeing significant benefits. Find out how stores are using ESLs to drive pricing accuracy, new customer experiences and operational efficiency.
Five ESL technologies that you need to know
Read our quick overview of the key technologies powering retail innovation. This useful introduction offers short descriptions and examples for e-paper displays, wireless communication protocols and more.
How Electronic Shelf Labels Are Being Used
Every retail format has a high demand for ESL capabilities – including systems that can be used for pricing automation, promotional displays, inventory alerts and customer information. Specific uses across sectors include:
Grocery
ESL applications can provide dynamic pricing and promotional messaging. Shelf-edge displays can act as shopping assistants, showing you recipe ideas, nutritional information or product comparisons.
Fashion
ESLs provide size availability indicators that offer real-time stock levels and display style options with the customer. Inventory management and floor layout technologies will also be improved with ESLs.
Electronics
ESLs can display product specifications as they update from manufacturer feeds to show current features and warranty information using NFC connectivity, a specific type of wireless communication used with mobile devices.
Pharmacy
Electronic shelf labels enhance the speed, precision and effectiveness of store operations. In pharmacy chains, ESL techniques can be used to identify which products need price updates, ensure regulatory compliance, as well as automate manually intense label printing tasks.
ESL technology has been an integral part of modern retail for years. Today we help customers in every sector capitalize on advancements in digital pricing, and we’ll continue embedding ESL technologies like color displays and IoT integration in solutions across retail environments.
Sarah Martinez
CEO RetailTech Solutions
SuperMart and ESL providers: Modernizing stores one label at a time
Traditional grocery stores are struggling. And with them, the shopping experiences that customers expect. SuperMart is exploring the value of electronic shelf labels in retail operations – to update prices the way major chains do and keep these neighborhood stores competitive.
How Electronic Shelf Labels Work
ESLs work by combining wireless communication with low-power displays and cloud-based pricing systems, allowing the labels to update automatically from changes or adjustments in the central database. This established field of retail tech includes many hardware types, protocols and configurations, as well as the following major components:
E-Paper Displays
E-paper displays use electronic ink technology. They show information using tiny capsules (like pixels) that change color by responding to electrical signals, updating information between each refresh. The displays require minimal power to maintain static images.
Wireless Communication
A wireless network is a type of data transmission that is made up of interconnected access points (like routers) that send information by broadcasting to individual labels. The process requires multiple communication protocols to transmit data and update pricing across thousands of labels.
Cloud Integration
Cloud integration uses centralized pricing systems with many layers of data sources, taking advantage of advances in internet connectivity and improved database management to synchronize complex pricing across all store locations. Common applications include promotional campaigns and competitive price matching.
Additionally, several technologies enable and support ESLs:
RFID technology relies on radio frequency identification to track inventory and product movement. When labels can transmit, receive and process signals, they can monitor stock levels in real time and alert managers to replenishment needs.
Mobile integration is the ability of smartphones to interact, scan and read label information, including NFC tags. The next stage of mobile integration is augmented reality shopping, which allows customers to access detailed product information using normal, everyday phones to enhance purchases.
Gateway infrastructure provides the communication backbone that’s required for large-scale deployment. Managing thousands of labels requires stable networks plus processing capacity.
Battery technology generates long operational lifespans from compact power sources, most of it maintenance-free. Automating displays with solar panels will allow us to extend battery life further.
Advanced software platforms are being developed and combined in new ways to manage more pricing data faster and at multiple locations. This intelligent management is key to coordinating flash sales, understanding local competition and optimizing individual store performance.
Integration APIs are standardized connection points that make it possible to add ESL functionality to existing retail management systems and point-of-sale platforms. They can add price synchronization to inventory systems and analytics capabilities that track pricing effectiveness, monitor promotional performance, or call out pricing discrepancies and optimization opportunities.
Are ESLs becoming standard?
As retail evolves, ESL systems have become increasingly commonplace, integrating with omnichannel platforms to enhance customer experience, optimize inventory and provide real-time pricing.
ESL adoption varies on a spectrum of implementation, ranging from stores where paper tags still exist to scenarios where all pricing is digital. Learn more about ESL systems and how they work.