Walmart announced on June 6, 2024 that it plans to expand digital shelf labels to 2,300 stores by 2026, letting employees change displayed prices through a mobile app instead of replacing paper tags by hand. The announcement follows a test at Store 266 in Grapevine, Texas. The 2,300-store figure is a target, not a count of completed installations. [S1]

Walmart says its stores handle thousands of price updates each week for new products, Rollbacks and markdowns. Daniela Boscan, identified in the company post as a food and consumable team lead in Hurst, Texas, says a price-update task that once took an associate two days now takes minutes. That is an employee account published by the employer, not an independent measurement of labor savings across stores. [S1]

The labels also help employees find the right shelf. With Stock to Light, a worker uses a mobile device to flash the shelf tag’s LED when replenishing goods. Pick to Light guides workers to products needed for online orders. Walmart says the latter makes picking faster and more accurate, without giving measured results. These tools address the search for a shelf position; the described workflows still have people stocking shelves and collecting products. [S1]

The equipment goes beyond the display. An April 27, 2023 release from supplier SES-imagotag described a Walmart U.S. contract whose first phase called for 500 locations over the following 12 to 18 months and 60 million digital labels. Its VUSION platform included shelf rails carrying connectivity and power, plus battery-less labels. Those were the supplier’s deployment plans and equipment description, not confirmation that the first phase had finished. [S1][S2]

For workers, changing a price and moving stock remain different jobs. Updating a display can replace a trip to swap a paper tag; directing someone to a shelf can shorten a search, but does not put the goods there. Walmart says the system frees time for customer assistance. Neither its June announcement nor the supplier’s April release quantifies total employee hours saved per store or explains how staffing would change. [S1][S2]

Source documents

  1. New Tech, Better Outcomes: Digital Shelf Labels Are a Win for Customers and Associateshttps://corporate.walmart.com/news/2024/06/06/new-tech-better-outcomes-digital-shelf-labels-are-a-win-for-customers-and-associates
  2. SES-imagotag announces latest-generation VUSION platform roll-out contract in Walmart Stores in U.S.https://www.actusnews.com/en/download/vusiongroup/2023/04/27/79582-ses-imagotag_pr_walmart_rollout_clean_vfinal.pdf