Sometimes the best argument for a new retail technology is a small improvement in the shopping trip. Walmart’s new Shop to Light feature could provide just that for electronic shelf labels, giving consumers a practical reason to welcome a controversial innovation whose benefits have largely been explained in operational terms.
The idea is simple. A shopper searching for a particular product can use the Walmart app for help in finding it. The app triggers a small LED on the product’s shelf label, which flashes to make it easier for the shopper to spot the item they’re looking for.
Anyone who has hunted for a spice jar, a particular vitamin or the correct size bottle of ketchup can appreciate the app’s utility. The technology addresses a familiar consumer frustration without asking shoppers to understand the technology behind it.
That should be a promising development for electronic shelf labels, which have proven controversial with some consumers despite offering retailers considerable advantages in price accuracy, store efficiency and reduced paper waste.
Consumers worry that retailers’ ability to update prices quickly could facilitate surge pricing or prices that are tailored to individual shoppers. Labor organizations worry that eliminating manual price changes will cut jobs. Such concerns have spurred legislative restrictions, including a New Jersey moratorium on new electronic shelf label adoption in grocery stores.
Retailers argue that the labels are only displays, and the pricing decisions are made through separate processes. They also argue that replacing repetitive tasks like shelf tag updates gives employees more time to stock shelves, fulfill orders and assist customers.
Those seem like meaningful benefits. Accurate prices matter to shoppers, and having employees spend less time replacing paper tags means they can devote more attention to customer service. But that kind of efficiency can go unnoticed, and consumers may not connect it to the electronic label beneath a product.
Shop to Light aims to highlight that connection. And Walmart is building on functionality already used by its employees. Stock to Light helps associates identify where merchandise belongs. Pick to Light helps them locate the specific brand, variety and size needed for an online order.
Walmart aims to allow that same infrastructure to more directly impact consumers by improving their shopping experience. Meanwhile such benefits as better stocking, more accurate order selection and easier product identification are all helping shoppers get what they came for.
For retailers, there may be a useful lesson here. Explaining cost savings and productivity gains behind a new technology may be helpful, but showing customers how it improves their own experience can make the proposition more compelling.
Walmart is also offering clear assurances about how its labels operate. The company says prices are set centrally, with associates reviewing approved changes, and updates typically occurring outside shopping hours. The labels do not independently determine prices, contain cameras or microphones, collect customer information or track shopping behavior. Activating a light does not change the price, and Walmart says it does not use personal information to determine what an individual pays.
Those assurances may provide context for shoppers encountering the technology. But Shop to Light gives them something more tangible, by helping finding a product they want to buy.
Electronic shelf labels make sense for retailers. Delivering a positive benefit to shoppers can only help make the consumer case stronger.
