For any football fan, the Holy Grail is going to Wembley. As you can imagine after the emotional highs and lows of watching my team, Cardiff City, get to the Cup Final for the first time since 1927 (even I wasn’t around then), I was not thrilled by the prospect of returning to Wembley Stadium only three days later.

I had been invited to the Episys European Signage & Labelling Convention – hardly the hottest ticket on eBay. However, in contrast to my downbeat mood as I trudged back up Olympic Way dreaming of what might have been on Saturday, I found the convention a revelation and, for the neutral, rather more exciting than the match.

I first came across electronic shelf-edge labelling in the US in the 1990s and dismissed it as an expensive toy. Today that has changed – both from a cost perspective and from the more disciplined multi-strategy approach now demanded by customers.

An integrated electronic labelling system can transport a retailer into a magic land where price adjustments are instantaneous and require no labour input at store level, while discrepancies are eliminated, enabling a consistent multi-strategy brand approach.

This investment should pay for itself in hard savings – notably store operations efficiency in terms of labour costs and consumables. But it is the promotional and soft savings that are potentially more dramatic.

Imagine being able to time pricing and promotional strategies to provide for lunchtime specials, happy hours, etc; to reinforce buying decisions by displaying the number of units sold and the number remaining in stock, and by displaying competitors’ pricing.

Increase your achieved gross margin simply by eliminating mistakes and being able to make instantaneous adjustments to prices; improve customer service by getting staff out of the back office and in front of customers; improve the presentation of product information at shelf-edge and standardise it to match online.

Given the massive investment most retailers have made in property, it is essential that the store image should be as efficient and hi-tech as possible and be supported by high service levels if the migration of customer traffic online is not to reach dangerous levels.

There can be no excuse for where shelf-edge or product pricing does not match that at the till and a queue of customers builds up, while the harassed till operator has to summon a supervisor or manager to sort the matter out.

A range of retailers as far apart as Woolworths and Home Depot were happy to stand up and detail their profitable and satisfying experiences. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

John Richards, retail consultant, Landsbanki Securities

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