Sharp LCD supermarket price tags
18th January, 2007 by stuart
Shoppers in Japan will soon enjoy a new electronic price tag system. Instead of a normal printed price tag, electronics giant, Sharp, has created a system using LCDs to display the cost of an item. The new setup will allow supermarkets to automatically change prices of products remotely from a central PC. The tags will also be able to display information other than just price, such as place of origin and sell-by date. Due to the nature of the display, no power is necessary to maintain the price on the tag; battery power is only consumed when changing pricing information. This allows the battery to last up to a maximum of five years.
Supermarkets will be charged 2000 yen (Ł8.41/$16.60) for each 2-inch display, and 2300 yen (Ł9.67/$19) for the 3-inch. Sharp aim to make 10 billion yen in sales this coming financial year.
Source: FujiSankei
January 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
I was wondering when something like this would come along. Being a legal administrator for a supermarket - prices and such are my sole responsibility. I’ll give it five years before it gets to the UK though.
January 19th, 2007 at 12:44 am
[…] [Via Plastic Bamboo] […]
January 19th, 2007 at 3:50 am
Any idea how much the transmitter costs?
These would be cool “fridge magnets” with the days weather and calendar and ToDo list beemed out automatically by your PC.
January 19th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Bruce, I’d hope you’d get it free if you bought a whole supermarket worth of tags!
January 19th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Some Belgian stores have allready implemented such price tags.
January 19th, 2007 at 10:04 am
The Swedish firm Pricer AB sell a ESL system since mid 1990, and the Carrefour chain has it in their stores in France, Spain and Italy!
http://www.pricer.com/
January 19th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
For those that are initiated, how are those compared to Pricer`s (the largest ESL-provider today) tags?
January 19th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Pricer is the world leader of ESL-tags with 60% of the world market. Both Carrefour and Metro which are no1 and no2 in european retail market are among Pricers´ customers. When it comes to technology i´d say Sharp is already behind Pricer since their Dot Matrix label is already out on the market since almost a year back and it can show the bar-code on the display where the Sharp label must be prepared with a paper label (as you can see on the pictures).
Sharp is a bigger company than Pricer but starting to compete with an actor that has 10+ years experience in the retail pricing market is not easy, especially since Pricer has thousands of store installations world-wide there is a foundation for setting an industry standard when it comes to the infrastructure of the ESL-system and I don´t think Sharps size as a company is sufficient to overcome that obstacle.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
This is the Pricer Dot Matrix label: http://www.pricer.com/templates/Page.aspx?id=279
They also have electronic paper displays: http://www.pricer.com/templates/Page.aspx?id=280
And standard LCD labels: http://www.pricer.com/templates/Page.aspx?id=194
January 19th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
SES is another competitor to Sharp in the ESL market.
http://www.ses-esl.fr/en_gmodele.htm
January 20th, 2007 at 2:20 am
Thanks Retail guy!
January 27th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
[…] Store shelves […]
April 10th, 2007 at 1:07 am
I was just wondering if I could use the pictures of the tags for my design project
April 10th, 2007 at 1:13 am
The images are from the sources mentioned in the post. Up to you!
April 11th, 2007 at 1:45 am
could you please give me the website of that source
April 11th, 2007 at 1:48 am
“The images are from the sources mentioned in the post.”
May 8th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
We are very interested in distribute your new product, can you please tell me what we have to do to get from you information and demos.
May 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
[…] algo que un tecnĂłlogo como yo está contento de empezar a ver como algo habitual son los marcadores LCD para los precios (bueno, los que conozco no son tan chulos). Quizás sean mas caros que poner unas etiquetas de […]