Are Electronic Shelf Labels Expensive?

As a result of digitizing and investing in strategic technologies, physical retailers are enhancing the shopping experience and reducing costs by replacing paper labels with electronic shelf labels (ESL).  

Electronic shelf labels generally cost 5 to 10 dollars, depending on the needs of your business. It will depend on many factors such as the size of the shop and the number of items. The price is also dependent on the type of electronic shelf label you will purchase. 

The ESL also necessitates a gateway and administration software in addition to labels themselves. The gateway handles the uploading and release, linking the ESL to the program. This costs between $300 and $400 for a gateway that can update 1,000 and 3,000 price tags. Three to four gates are needed for a 1,000-square-meter retail business, which means the total cost of the gateway is around $1,200.

The ESL provider will determine the cost of the ESL management software. The maintenance price is usually included in the regular fee of roughly $500. If you want to put 10,000 electronic price tags on your shelves, you'll need $60,000-100,000.

For instance, you can print pricing on 4x4 paper with a laser printer and place the printed sheets in plastic pockets attached to shelves. Despite its appearance, this technology is not cost-effective. Cartridges, laser label forms, wasted paper, and expensive maintenance contracts may significantly increase your costs with this machine. Those costs don't even include the time lost by your employees as they trek back and forth from your shop to the printing office.

Starting an ESL requires a significant investment of time and money, which necessitates a shift in pricing practices. The initial cost of a 10,000-tag system can be as high as $100,000. 

It might not be easy to justify a monetary spend when operational teams and management see numbers like those. Yet if correctly designed, an ESL system can pay for itself within two to three years of its installation and use. When pricing optimization software is employed, your business can achieve the ROI as short as a year.

Electronic shelf labels are one of the finest investments merchants can make right now. The financial and labor benefits outweigh the losses you suffer every day from using labor-intensive paper labels or pre-printed price tags.

SOLUM offers Newton electronic shelf label that has more functionality than other digital shelf labels in the market today. Its features include: 

• Battery life of ten years
• 8 to 10 times faster update speed!
• More information can be displayed - up to seven pages!
• LEDs come in seven different hues.
• Button programming is available for two separate buttons.
• Capability for NFC
• IP67
• The design can be altered to suit the needs of the user.

You can count on SOLUM to assess your return on investment and demonstrate the advantages of electronic shelf labels. Get in touch with us right away to learn more about how our ESLs can benefit your company.