The era of 5G cloud network integration is coming, and all walks of life are facing intelligent innovation. In the Internet era, the retail industry has broken through space constraints and moved towards online and chain operations. The technological revolution in the Internet of Things era has enabled the retail industry to develop towards intelligence, automation, and unmanned development. collect) shopping mode.

The integration of Internet of Things technology and thousands of industries has given birth to the emergence of a phenomenon-level application "electronic price tag" in the new retail field. As a smart terminal for real-time information such as product prices and promotional advertisements, the electronic price tag provides The opening of the networking interface is setting off a new trend in the construction of digital terminals and touch points in retail stores.

Electronic price tag, a tens of billions market derived from the new retail trend

ESL (Electronic Shelf Label) is an LCD and electronic paper display device with information sending and receiving functions. It realizes price information changes through wireless communication, so it can replace traditionalprice tags. In addition, it adopts low power consumption technology, ink screen The electronic price tag can achieve more than 5 years of battery life with 2 button batteries, and has become a sharp tool for major retailers to reduce costs and increase efficiency. It has been widely used in domestic supermarket retail brand stores such as Wal-Mart, Yonghui, Suning, CDFG, Hema Fresh, Xiaomi Home, and Bianlifeng.

The history of electronic price tag can be traced back to 20 years ago. The first electronic price tag was born in Europe in 1993. At that time, it was difficult to commercialize it in large quantities due to high production costs. In recent years, with the increase in labor costs, the rapid iteration of the retail industry, and the Internet of Things Enabling technological progress, electronicprice tagscan be used on a large scale around the world.

Compared with the time-consuming and labor-intensive replacement of traditional paper price tags, electronic price tags have opened up online and offline channels, and can quickly synchronize cloud sales information (prices, promotions, advertisements, etc.) to offline shelves and counters, with real-time price changes and no labor. It has the advantages of low operation and maintenance costs, high-precision display, and expandable interface. Especially for fresh goods and promotional goods, the electronic price tag can automatically change the price according to the preset time, reducing the loss rate of fresh food.

In addition to price management, electronic price tags can also be combined with Bluetooth AoA base stations and ERP systems to realize functions such as item positioning and inventory management in medium and large supermarkets. If it is combined with AI, big data and other technologies, it can also realize passenger flow analysis, Display path optimization, floor efficiency calculation and other auxiliary decision-making functions.

According to Epaper Insight data, global shipments of electronic paper price tag modules will reach 180 million pieces in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 38%. They are mainly used in shelf labels, price tags and other label products. Shipments will increase to 340 million pieces, and the market size of the electronic paper industry will exceed US$6.5 billion.

Compared with the popularity of electronic price tags in the retail industry in developed countries in Europe and the United States, the development of related domestic industries is relatively lagging behind. According to research by consulting agencies, the market penetration rate of electronic price tags in France is as high as 50-60%, while that in the domestic market is less than 10%.

Industry insiders believe that the lag of the domestic market lies in two points: first, the rise of electronic price tags is closely related to the increase in labor costs in developed countries. At present, there is still a demographic dividend in my country, and labor costs are far lower than those in developed countries, and the degree of market promotion is relatively slow. Second, the domestic retail industry is in the early stage of development and the speed is slow. The concept of new retail has become popular in recent years. The digitalization of retail stores is in its infancy, and technology applications including electronic price tags have only been gradually applied.

In 2011, the Wal-Mart Shenzhen branch used the first batch of about 5,000 electronic price tags. Since then, Suning, Wumart and other supermarkets have driven the application of electronic price tags. Until 2016, the concept of new retail in China was hot, and the application of electronic price tags in China began to flourish. In 2019, shipments will reach 12 million pieces, mainly used in smart retail (85%), smart office (5%), smart warehousing (3%), and smart healthcare (3%).

Affected by the epidemic, the multi-city coverage plan of electronic price tags in the domestic retail industry may be delayed. However, with the recovery of production conditions and the increase of manufacturers' offline stores, the number of ESL pilot cities and brands will be further expanded in the future. Bluetooth modules Manufacturers and electronic price tag manufacturers will also continue to increase, and the problem of slow market growth due to excessive costs is gradually being resolved.

At the same time, the new ESL technology is also constantly being updated. In 2021, the electronic paper supplier Yuantai Technology released the new color four-color electronic paper technology E Ink Spectra, which will be mass-produced in the past two years; the electronic shelf label company Digety from Germany In May of this year, it also developed a light-energy electronic shelf label to realize ESL passive communication. The future scale effect is expected to break the high price threshold.

Brief analysis of the principle of electronic price tag system

The electronic price tag uses a low-power communication SoC communication chip as the hardware platform, which can integrate electronic ink screens of different sizes (1.6 inches-12.2 inches). This device realizes information synchronization through wireless communication technology. The system consists of four components: electronic price tag (ESL), wireless base station (ESLAP), electronic price tag SaaS system and handheld terminal (PDA).

Generally, the product and price information are synchronized on the SaaS cloud platform, and the information is sent to the electronic price tag through the ESL base station. After receiving the information, the price tag can display the basic information of the product such as name, price, origin, and specification in real time. Similarly, product information can also be changed offline by scanning the product code with a handheld terminal PDA.

The electronic price tag is composed of a communication module and an electronic ink screen. The mainstream integration on the market is the Bluetooth Low Energy BLE module, which also supports communication through radio frequency technologies such as 2.4G frequency band private protocols, Zigbee, and Wi-Fi. The NB-IoT protocol is also supported in the "Overall Requirements for IoT Electronic Shelf Label System (Draft for Comment)" standard. Some electronic price tags also support NFC reading and writing functions, which can quickly read the product information of the price tag when approaching. E-ink screens are light in weight and thin in thickness. Compared with LCD screens, the cost is controllable. In the case of power failure, the graphic information before refreshing can also be retained to achieve extremely low power consumption.

Most manufacturers choose to produce ESL base stations independently, and some cloud manufacturers such as Huawei and Ali integrate ESL base stations into wireless base stations. The coverage radius of the base station is

between 30-40 meters, and the maximum number of tags that can be accommodated is 1000-5000. etc. After using the base station to strengthen the signal, the deployment plan of one store and one base station can be realized.

In the international market, manufacturers such as SES (France), Pricer (Sweden), Samsung (South Korea), E Ink (Taiwan, China), and Displaydata (UK) are the main suppliers of electronic price tags. In the domestic electronic price tag industry, players with high market activity include Hanshow Technology, BOE, Xiaofei Technology, Smart Control Network, Yaliang Smart, and Yunli Wuli. In addition, some Bluetooth chip and module manufacturers are also trying to expand their layout retail market.

Wulian Media predicted in the "2020 China New Retail Market Electronic Price Tag Industry Research Report" that in 2022, the domestic electronic price tag shipments will reach 120 million pieces, and the domestic market has complete production factors and a policy environment in the electronic price tag industry. Support, high-efficiency manpower work and other advantages, in recent years, there is a trend of surpassing foreign development.

Can electronic price tags support another sky of new retail

The market promotion of electronic price tags bears the brunt of the cost issue. Hanshow Technology, which has the largest domestic SEL market share, once said in an interview that there are millions of retail stores in my country. If we refer to the population price tag application ratio of developed countries , The market size of my country's electronic price tags has room for growth of 100 billion yuan, but the cost is always the pain point of scale.

According to the "Electronic Price Tag Research Report", the retail price of a single 2.13-inch electronic price tag is around 50 yuan, and the deployment cost of a store with thousands of SUK goods is around 100,000. 3-5 years. The reason for the high price can be traced back to the fact that the upstream electronic paper supply chain is relatively simple. On the other hand, the current shortage of cores leads to high raw material prices, and the possibility of short-term price reduction of electronic price tags is extremely low.

At present, the price and value of electronic price tags are asymmetrical, and customers are unwilling to pay a premium, which has become a demand gap that needs to be bridged for the development of electronic price tags. Only by crossing the demand gap can the electronic price tag enter the early stage of herd with a larger number of users, and rely on the network and ecology to achieve rapid coverage.

Secondly, electronic price tags are used as product entrances, and business opportunities are yet to be discovered, and the application scenarios are relatively single. At present, 90% of electronic price tags are used in the retail field of supermarkets, and less than 10% are used in office, medical and other scenarios. In the view of SES-imagotag, an electronic price tag industry giant, electronic price tags are not just a tool for passively displaying prices, but a micro-webpage of omni-channel data, which can help consumers make consumption decisions and help employers and employees save time and cost.

The electronic price tag is a part of the digital retail solution of "cloud price tag + AI + data + e-commerce + marketing". More possibilities can be opened up in terms of functions such as product interaction, smart cash register, shopping mall positioning, and store departure stickiness.

几年前,电工实习onic price tags were more like a "dispensable" non-rigid product in the industry. With the increase in the cost of online customer acquisition in recent years, the active remote economy in the epidemic era, and the continued popularity of new retail, physical stores have become more popular among retail companies. The value of the business core has been re-evaluated, the Internet of Things technology has begun to revitalize the undervalued traditional assets in physical stores, the "people and goods yard" is deeply integrated with the intelligent interaction of hardware, software, and platforms, and the intelligent interaction is highly automated, data-driven, and efficient. The scene has been given unprecedented attention, and the electronic price tag, which was once a spark, has ushered in an excellent opportunity for the development of Liaoyuan.