Skip to footer

UK grocer tries out e-ink price tags

Sainsbury’s grocery store is testing digital pricing system in one London location, which, if successful, will be rolled out in all its stores.

|
Stefan Wermuth/Reuters
A Sainsbury's supermarket sign is seen in London January 6, 2015. British grocer Sainsbury's posted a better-than-expected performance in the Christmas quarter, though it was still hurt by a loss of share to discounters and an intensifying industry price war. The group, which trails troubled market leader Tesco and Wal-Mart Stores' Asda by annual sales, said on Wednesday sales at stores open over a year fell 1.7 percent, excluding fuel, in the 14 weeks to Jan. 3, its fiscal third quarter.

Sainsbury’s is the United Kingdom’s third largest grocery store, but lately it seems more interested in implementing new technology. The chain announced today that, at least for a trial run at one store, it is going to do away with price stickers, opting for e-ink digital pricing displays.

This will allow Sainsbury’s to save on paper and labor, as well as change and update prices more easily. Currently the technology can be seen only in the Shoreditch Old Street location, in upscale area of London.

"A key part of our strategy is to make sure we’re looking at new technology on behalf of our colleagues to make their lives easier,” Jon Rudoe, the director of digital technology at Sainsbury’s, said in a statement. "So this trial will give us useful feedback about quicker, efficient digital pricing information and how much time and paper we’ll save in the process."

This is not the first time that Sainsbury’s, or its competitor Tesco, have gotten unusually futuristic for a grocer.

Sainsbury’s began offering a streaming entertainment service with movies, TV shows, and music at the end of last year and features a lot of current media, although it is not available in the US. Last November, the company also designed at mobile app that allows customers to skip the checkout and scan items on their phones as they shop.

At least the latter is related to primary business.

Tesco has also taken on some unconventional business ventures, such as designing a its own tablet the Hudl and Hudl2, which are actually two of the most highly rated tablets in the UK. It has also worked the Google Glass to develop a mobile app that would allow customers to order grocery items on the go by looking at the bar code.

According to Tesco, the intent of the app was not to replace the weekly shopping trip so much as an easy way to take note that you have run out of something.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to UK grocer tries out e-ink price tags
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2015/0219/UK-grocer-tries-out-e-ink-price-tags
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe