Tag: Electronic Shelf Labels

A Bit Of Good News In Illinois About Digital Grocery Store Coupons

A nod to those less technically inclined

A bit of good news for Illinois residents in this follow up about Electronic Shelf Labels.

A grocery store shelf stocked with jars of Duke's Mayonnaise under a digital price tag. The yellow tag displays product details for "Kraft Mayo w/ Olive Oil Reduced Fat Mayo 30 fl oz," showing a single item price of $5.99 (regularly $6.49) and a "Jojo's Backyard Bash" sale price of $3.99 each when buying two (sale thru 06/09). The shelf below contains multiple jars of Duke's Real Mayonnaise with distinctive yellow lids reading "Duke's - It's Got Twang!"

I wrote about Electronic Shelf Labels a bit ago, and the problems I had with not only reading them, but the problems I could foresee them being used for, including surge or dynamic pricing. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed a law to take effect on January 1, 2027 that will at least require grocery store owners to honor promotions offered via digital means to those who may not have access to the technology to access the promotions.

Essentially the law means grocery stores have to make the discount available to all customers, regardless of whether or not they are using an app to access the promotions.

Based on the news coverage and the reading of the law I’m unclear how this will go into effect, but at least it will allow customers to take advantage of promotions without using an app.

In my experience this has caused numerous problems and delays at the checkout counter, especially for senior customers. Grocery store cashiers (when you shop at a store that still offers them) also complain.

I’m not sure what impact this may have on surge pricing, which is obviously a goal from the purveyors of digital coupons, but if stores have to make the same discount available to everyone it should at least slow down the momentum towards that type of marketing.

I doubt this solves the readability issue though.

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Electronic Shelf Labels Leave Me Squinting

Convenience for who exactly?

Depending on where you live and where you shop you’ve probably run across a store or two that may now be using Electronic Shelf Labels to display product prices. I’ve seen them in the several different grocery stores I shop. There are some interesting concerns about these that I’ll get into below, but first I want to address what I see. Or can’t. 

I understand that these new labels will make it easier for stores to change prices. No more paper signs, or employees cluttering up the aisles while slapping on new price tags. (Blocking store aisles is lately reserved for the carts gathering items for people doing curbside pickup or Instacart.) 

What these Electronic Store Label’s don’t do is make it easy on customers. Especially those of us with older eyes who can hardly read the fine print. Also those of us with older knees and hips who have a tough time bending down to read the tiny print on lower shelves.

I fall into both categories. I have always carried a pair of reading glasses with me when I grocery shop, but even with those I can’t read the pricing info placed so close to the floor.

I’ve spoken with several store managers about this, all of whom seem sympathetic as they shrug their shoulders blaming corporate bosses for the change. 

I’ve resorted to taking pictures with my smartphone so I can check the info, which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing, But it is an inconvenient one. I find this move as distinctly inconvenient and as unpleasant a shopping experience as I did when stores all moved to self-checkout as their preferred way of moving customers through checkout lines like cattle. 

The other issues I spoke about earlier are concerns some have about how the ease of changing prices could affect consumers. Think surge pricing or dynamic pricing based on the time of day or popularity of a product. That’s bound to happen somewhere. (Don’t ever put anything beyond the imagination of bean counter.) 

Of course we’ll probably also see technical difficulties causing confusion. Check out this one. 

I’m reasonably sure that’s not a Rock Creek Bike costing $112 somehow misplaced in the processed cheese aisle that’s causing blank displays all around.

I’m sure we’ll hear more about this as Electronic Shelf Labeling becomes more widespread. But in the meantime, give customers a break with the tiny print in places to difficult to read. 

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.