Asda rolls out electronic price tags…:

That's right I remember now, penalty rates! In principle I liked that - nothing to do with me working in that sector at the time honestly! :p

I made fortune while working in Darwin, good times!
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
That's right I remember now, penalty rates! In principle I liked that - nothing to do with me working in that sector at the time honestly! :p

I made fortune while working in Darwin, good times!
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Talking to the young people in retail, saying stuff like "during the war we used to get double time on sundays and bank holidays" and their faces (that they don't)
 
Jimbeam3678 said:
I forgot Australia charge more at peak times, food and bar places charge more at weekend and public holidays. That was in Perth & Darwin 10 years ago when I lived there.
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Hospitality generally charges less in the U.K. during off peak hours.

We are just more polite about it and call it the ‘lunch menu’ or run a weekday evening ‘special offer’. All those thing disappear on a weekend, public holidays. On days like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, a ‘special’ (price bumped) menu is rolled out.

It amounts to basically the same thing.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Hospitality generally charges less in the U.K. during off peak hours.

We are just more polite about it and call it the ‘lunch menu’ or run a weekday evening ‘special offer’. All those thing disappear on a weekend, public holidays. On days like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, a ‘special’ (price bumped) menu is rolled out.

It amounts to basically the same thing.
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We went to the Royal Albert Hall last week, and had a pint at a pub at Hammersmith before going. £11 for two pints. After the show, same pub, same pints, £17.50.

Imagine if they had access to digital labels :D
 
Not a fan as it's hard to keep track of prices. Especially special offers.

I have no issue if all. Prices change only at 1am (for example).

But if you're going, you pick 3 things for 3 for 2. That offer vanishes before you get to the till and you don't notice?

But I think that would soon annoy people and they'd go to a different super market so doubt it will be like that.

Most of mine is done online anyway so no real issue here.
 
Armageus said:
Yes it's for their benefit. It cuts down on actual labour (which given the constant minimum wage rises is their biggest cost) to have to go around and update pricing when things do change, but also cuts down on pricing errors, and cuts down on waste paper/cardboard and so likely helps with their environmental responsibilities.


No it isn't. The conspiracy theories are strong in here.

If supermarkets wanted to dynamically price items then they already would have, getting someone to go and change a paper ticket is hardly a big deal if they are making huge profits on the dynamic pricing that you seem to believe will happen.
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IIRC when epaper was first coming out way back in the early 00's electronic price labels was one of the things it was expected to be used for with various different ideas for how best to do it, I remember an article talking about getting the power consumption low enough someone simply walking past with a PDA could use something like NFC to communicate and power them for the updates, with the idea being that they would be updated whenever a staff member went near the shelves to put stock out, or even just have someone walk down the isle to do it.
Even back then the cost of printing and swapping out price labels correctly was, as you say a significant thing that they were looking to reduce.

I'm going to guess that what took the time was getting the eink display cheap enough, and the power consumption low enough to get it to beat the cost of the staff in a smaller time frame.
 
413x said:
Not a fan as it's hard to keep track of prices. Especially special offers.

I have no issue if all. Prices change only at 1am (for example).

But if you're going, you pick 3 things for 3 for 2. That offer vanishes before you get to the till and you don't notice?

But I think that would soon annoy people and they'd go to a different super market so doubt it will be like that.

Most of mine is done online anyway so no real issue here.
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They're not going to change the pricing during opening hours, if nothing else doing so will likely cause them to get caught out by various trading standards and consumer protection laws.

One of the reasons they want to use Eink tags is specifically because at the moment paper tags from old offers are sometimes missed when the shelves are restocked and prices updated overnight and it does in fact cause problems with customer service and sometimes even trading standards.
I used to see a lot of tag locations in a couple of my supermarkets where it was obvious they'd not removed the previous pricing and instead just bunged a new price under the plastic cover over the top of the old, or where they had the old and new prices on the same shelf with the old one having a note "offer expires DD/MM" so they had the getout clause "oh the correct price was displayed", I got caught out a few times by that.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Hospitality generally charges less in the U.K. during off peak hours.

We are just more polite about it and call it the ‘lunch menu’ or run a weekday evening ‘special offer’. All those thing disappear on a weekend, public holidays. On days like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, a ‘special’ (price bumped) menu is rolled out.

It amounts to basically the same thing.
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That's a fair point, however Darwin specifically did/does do those offers as well. Anyone young enough, likes hot weather and works in hospitality I would highly recommend working over there for X years.

I was living the life overthere and still saving between 400-500 AUD a week - this was 10-12 years ago. Like all good things it had to come to an end :(
 
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Does anyone know how these communicate? I expect in a large store there are literally thousands of these to try and manage and wifi is power hungry.
 
meandu229 said:
Does anyone know how these communicate? I expect in a large store there are literally thousands of these to try and manage and wifi is power hungry.
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It uses new wifi power beam forming tech. They price tags all use ultra low power wifi that can only transmit 1 meter, and the signals bounce of the tinfoil hats some of the customers wear, as they pass by, and it amplifies the signal.


rp2000
 
I just went to my local supermarket and asked them. They said they work over WiFi and update everyday at midnight. The prices are set at head office. The staff in the shop just have to replace the faulty ones and nothing else.

I'm sure it's BLE or ZigBee considering some of them are tiny tags and have small batteries. I asked if I could have an old one, they said they didn't have any. I'll probably just nick a load next time I go.

Edit: these one have 2 tiny buttons on the back. One of them turns them off and I couldn't figure out what the other one did.


rp2000
 
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Armageus said:
Hanshow Nubular 350 according to https://mastodon.social/@biglesp/113850047734685555

15 year battery life

They operate in the 2.4Ghz band and so will likely use IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee / 6LoWPAN etc) rather than Wifi
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That's really impressive, I'm guessing they gave up on NFC when the low power radio stuff hit the point it was basically able to work on an internal battery for years, as the nfc stuff would still have required a staff member to be near them.
And it's mildly amusing to think they're using the same tech that cheap/consumer grade smarthome buttons use :)
 
I bet if you attached a noise maker near a bunch of them the staff would go crazy trying to find out which tag it is
 
Werewolf said:
That's really impressive, I'm guessing they gave up on NFC when the low power radio stuff hit the point it was basically able to work on an internal battery for years, as the nfc stuff would still have required a staff member to be near them.
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it's cool how NFC fob entry systems work not needing a battery and being powered by the magnetic field of the reader.


oops ended up double posting by mistake instead of editing my post sorry!
 
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