Germany’s leading drugstore operator dm is the second retail company worldwide after Walmart to opt for VusionGroup’s innovative EdgeSense shelf label technology. 20 dm stores in Germany are already equipped with the solution, with another 50 to follow soon.
With EdgeSense, the power supply for the digital labels is no longer located in the labels themselves, but in the form of rechargeable batteries in the shelf rails. But EdgeSense does much more than just display prices and product information: the Bluetooth-enabled labels open up completely new possibilities for communicating with customers and employees about the location of individual products.
As Lebensmittel Zeitung reports today, dm plans to combine EdgeSense technology with Ubica robots, which roll through the drugstore chain’s stores to generate data from images of the shelves. Until now, Ubica robots have been used to create a digital image of its stores in order to generate realograms of the store with its specific architectural features. Ubica robots are already permanently stationed in 250 dm stores, photographing the shelves and any gaps in them at night when they are not in the way.
Combination of EdgeSense and Ubica
By combining VusionGroup’s EdgeSense with Ubica technology, dm now wants to take the next step and create real-time data from shelf images in order to centrally identify and analyse shelf gaps, misplacements and incorrect shelf labelling, and eliminate them by assigning appropriate tasks to employees.
With its Captana solution family, VusionGroup is already one of the leading technology providers offering a platform for real-time shelf monitoring. However, VusionGroup’s existing customers do not rely on robots for shelf monitoring, but instead use with Captana small, wireless cameras that are mounted at the same shelf rails as the digital labels. This allows data to be extracted from images even during opening hours without robots disrupting operations. As reported by Lebensmittel Zeitung, VusionGroup has now also acquired a stake in Ubica and currently holds 11.9 per cent of the robotics start-up.
Use case far greater than just paper replacement
It is not surprising that dm Drogeriemarkt is only now addressing the subject of electronic shelf labels (ESL) when they offer such clear added value beyond replacing paper labels. This is because dm – as Lebensmittel Zeitung rightly points out – guarantees its customers a fixed price for every item for at least four months and does not change some prices even after years.
In fact, dm will continue to display the date since which the price has not been changed on the digital labels, as it has done on the paper ones up to now. In doing so, dm is creating a unique level of trust with its customers in the retail sector and, according to information of The Retail Optimiser, no plans to make pricing more dynamic with the new technology.
Optimisation of in-store order picking
dm has already installed VusionGroup labels in 20 stores. The drugstore operator is already using them for picking online orders in the store, where LEDs on the labels of the products that the employee is to pick flash.
“Our partnership with VusionGroup is based on close and trusting cooperation. Together, we explore and develop use cases and digital solutions that accelerate our strategic transformation,” explains Roman Melcher, CIO of dm and Managing Director of dmTech, in a press release: “This cooperation enables us to continue our digital journey and promote innovations that benefit both our teams and our customers.”
