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BENTONVILLE, Ark. — One year after the agreement of their strategic partnership, SES-imagotag announced that they entered into a new agreement with Walmart to initiate the deployment of the latest-generation VUSION platform within several hundred Walmart U.S. stores.
The contract will span several years, with a first phase of 500 locations over the next 12 to 18 months, for a total of 60 million digital shelf labels, with the opportunity to expand further within Walmart’s store fleet.
Walmart will deploy for the first time ever the latest-generation VUSION platform, which was developed by SES-imagotag labs through an R&D program that has been in progress for more than ten years, with first patents filed as early as 2013. The latest-generation VUSION platform features many major innovations to further digitize shelves:
- – Smart rails combining connectivity and energy;
- – Battery-less digital labels with enhanced performance;
- – A new transmission protocol based on the ultra-low-power new Bluetooth standard recently announced and jointly developed with Qualcomm and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group;
- – BLE-enabled new features based on advanced inter-operability with compatible devices;
- – A substantial carbon footprint reduction compared to any existing ESL solution.
“Changing price shelf labels in stores is time intensive for our associates. We’ve been testing digital solutions that will help us manage these price changes electronically, allowing associates more time to do what matters most – helping our customers,” said Bala Prasanna, vice president, Walmart U.S. “We’re seeing positive results and are expanding the rollout of these electronic shelf labels.”
Philippe Bottine, SEVP & CEO North America of SES-imagotag concluded: “Through this roll-out with the undisputed leader of global retail, this new highly innovative platform will redefine the standards and use cases of our industry and open up limitless possibilities for the omnichannel transformation of physical commerce. The digitization of stores, made possible at scale by these technologies, will enable them to become highly efficient, more interactive, and decisive assets for a local and low-carbon e-Commerce business model, at the heart of the hybrid retail of tomorrow.”
