Walmart has announced a strategic shift from traditional paper price tags to digital shelf labels (DSLs) across its stores, aiming to streamline operations and enhance efficiency in pricing management. The transition, abbreviated as DSLs, is set to transform the retail giant’s approach to pricing technology, marking a significant advancement in its operational strategy.
According to Walmart, the adoption of DSLs will revolutionize the speed and accuracy with which prices are updated in stores. Previously, updating thousands of price tags could take days, but with DSLs, Walmart employees can accomplish the task in minutes. This improvement in efficiency is expected to optimize workflow and reduce operational costs associated with manual price changes.
The initiative follows a successful pilot phase at 50 Walmart stores initiated last year. Buoyed by positive results, Walmart plans to expand DSL deployment to 2,300 of its 4,700 stores by 2026, underscoring its commitment to integrating cutting-edge technology into its retail operations.
Daniela Boscan, Food & Consumable Team Lead at a Walmart store in Texas, highlighted the transformative impact of DSLs on daily operations. Boscan noted three primary benefits: increased productivity and reduced walking time for associates, simplified stock replenishment through the “stock to light” feature, and accelerated order picking and fulfillment with the “pick to light” capability.
“With DSLs, a price change that previously took two days to update can now be completed in minutes,” Boscan emphasized, illustrating the efficiency gains brought about by the new technology.
Walmart stores typically carry an extensive array of products, amounting to over 120,000 items on shelves, each requiring individual price tags. The transition to DSLs enables seamless management of pricing updates, including new items, rollbacks, and markdowns, on a massive scale.
While the implementation of DSLs promises enhanced operational efficiency, Walmart has clarified that the technology will not be utilized for practices such as surge pricing or dynamic pricing based on customer profiles. Greg Cathey, SVP of Transformation and Innovation at Walmart, affirmed the company’s commitment to maintaining transparent and consistent pricing practices.
“It is absolutely not going to be ‘one hour it is this price and the next hour it is not,'” Cathey reassured, addressing potential concerns about the use of DSLs for dynamic pricing strategies.
