Walmart said in March that about half of its stores have the technology, and the remaining ones are expected to get it within the next year.<\/p>\n
To learn more about these shelf labels and see how they behave in the wild, I visited two Wisconsin supercenters to talk to employees who are navigating the change.<\/p>\n
I visited the Walmart in Portage, Wisconsin, where staff were setting up the new shelf labels.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Most of the store still had paper labels, and the team had been working around the clock for two days before my visit to install the digital labels.<\/p>\n
Walmart employee Elizabeth Nigh showed me the typical price change process with the paper tags.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
As many as a dozen employees can be busy during a shift, working through the changes.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday morning, the store had nearly 1,200 prices to change across departments.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Walmart prices are set by the corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, and managed by store workers with an app on their devices.<\/p>\n
The paper price tags are made using small portable printers.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Other hardware is sometimes needed, such as colorful frames and pop-ups, to help a special price stand out on the shelf.<\/p>\n
Nigh then fishes the old label out of its plastic sleeve and slots the new one in.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
If there is a discrepancy between the shelf price and the register price, consumer protection laws generally require retailers to honor the lower one.<\/p>\n
Customers don’t typically complain if they’re rung up for less than they expected to pay, but it can be a rude surprise for a shopper (and lost money for a retailer) if a price increase isn’t yet reflected on the shelf.<\/p>\n
The printer handles up to 10 labels at once, so larger runs are done in batches.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Each shade of lip gloss had its own product code, so each one needed a label.<\/p>\n
That can add up fast in categories with a lot of variations, like health and beauty.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
The typical Walmart supercenter carries around 120,000 products, and prices in some departments, like grocery, can rise and fall in a matter of days due to market conditions.<\/p>\n
I then spoke with Derek Gordon, who was installing digital shelf labels in the toys and games section.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
He said it takes him about six minutes to adapt a standard shelf section for electronic labels. It’s a few minutes of extra work up front, but he said it saves time down the line compared to paper labels.<\/p>\n
In most cases, a rail clips onto the shelf face in a few clicks.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
An integrated battery in the rail can power the electronic labels for up to eight years. A spokesperson told me the design was more economical than having each label contain its own battery.<\/p>\n
Gordon scans the tag’s barcode with an app to make sure it’s on the correct product.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Like with the paper price tags, each four-foot section has a particular plan that store employees must follow and match.<\/p>\n
The system Gordon set up had no sensors or cameras that could capture information about who was shopping.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
He said that meant the labels couldn’t gather or transmit any personal information about shoppers.<\/p>\n
A proposed bill in New York state would ban retailers from using shoppers’ personal information to adjust prices selectively.<\/p>\n
Once scanned, Gordon taps a button, and the tags flicker on to reveal the prices in the system.<\/p>\n
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Dominick Reuter\/Business Insider <\/p>\n
Walmart told me prices are set by the corporate office in Bentonville, and changes are pushed out to stores overnight.<\/p>\n