East of England Co-op boosts labour productivity by 70% with ESL solution from Pricer

Labour savings on time previously spent maintaining paper labels reduced by 70%

Store staff have been freed from manual shelf-edge tasking to focus on CX delivery

Moving to ESLs has reduced store printing costs by 50% while saving paper use and waste from traditional labels

Regional cooperative, East of England Co-op, has improved labour productivity whilst improving customer service delivery in-store with an Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) solution from Pricer, the leading in-store automation and communication solutions provider.

Established in 1861, East of England Co-op is now the largest independent retailer operating in the East of England.  In addition to the 120 food stores it operates in the region, East of England Co-op also offers customers specialist services, such as funerals, security, travel agents and petrol filling stations, to support communities across Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk,Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.

Having announced the roll-out of Pricer’s ESLs to its entire store estate in March, East of England Co-op now uses Pricer’s solution, powered by its cloud-based Plaza platform, to centrally manage and control pricing, product information and promotions across all its ESLs.  Eliminating the need for manual updates, the ESLs deliver real-time price and promotions updates, reducing the risk of pricing errors and ensuring accuracy and efficiency in shelf-edge operations.  The solution also drives overall store efficiency by enabling store colleagues to focus their efforts on customer-focused and value-adding tasks that deliver store performance.

With the new ESL solution now deployed in around 40% of its retail estate, East of England Co-op has already seen significant boosts to labour productivity, drastically reducing the manual effort of store colleagues in maintaining shelf-edge processes, including printing and tearing label strips as well as replacing paper labels. 

Before it was spending tens of thousands of labour hours each year completing manual shelf-edge processes, now it estimates labour time that would have been spent on maintaining traditional paper labels has been reduced by 70%.  This has not only delivered labour productivity and efficiency gains, but it also allows store associates to focus time on customer-facing, service-oriented tasks to improved customer experience (CX) in-store.  Additionally, the move to ESLs has also helped East of England Co-op reduced store printing costs by 50% as well as saving paper use and waste from traditional physical labels.

Stephen Lamb, Head of Program Delivery, East of England Co-op, commented: “The standout aspect of our ESLs Programme is the collaborative spirit Pricer has fostered within the delivery team.  This partnership has navigated the challenges of an intensive change programme, demonstrating resilience and adaptability while exceeding the original scope of price and promotion for tangible benefits.  Built on a foundation of trust, the feedback from our Co-op technical teams, business units, store colleagues and Pricer highlights how we’ve worked together to seize opportunities.”

Peter Ward, UK Country Manager at Pricer, commented: “We know driving labour productivity in-store is a key focus for retailers, who want to be able to leverage one of their most important and valuable assets – their store staff – to those tasks that drive the most value to customers.  Through ESLs, East of England Co-op has freed store associates to serve, deliver efficiency gains and customer experience enhancement, whilst still achieving all the automated operational requirements to effectively merchandise and maintain the shelf-edge.”