Seowon Distribution is a large South Korean fresh food supermarket that is currently operating 77 supermarkets directly, including 26 in Busan, 34 in Gyeongnam, 12 in Gyeongbuk, and 5 in Ulsan. Total sales for 2020 amounted to KRW 1.66 trillion, making it the largest food retailer in the region of Yeongnam.

Solution

Infortab ESL solution was deployed in Top mart. The 2.90-inch-display model R290, which is commonly used in Korean retail stores, is now proposed in the fresh corner as well as other food corners, and the refrigerated corner was equipped with the R290F model that operates normally even at a temperature of -40 degrees. As for management, pricing is managed centrally from the head office, through its central server management system. This allows to control pricing from a single place, and update all necessary prices all at once.

Challenge

As a characteristic of fresh food distribution, price cycles are very fast, making the replacement and operation of product prices a real challenge for retailers. This is explained by the constant fluctuation of commodity costs, partly due to due to changes in climate and crop. Due to rising customer complaints. It became necessary to reduce the price confusion caused by a difference of cost between the actual price and the price indicated on the price tag. As more than 51% of the total sales of Tom Mart are from fresh foods such as agricultural, water, and livestock products, digitalizing the pricing system with Electronic Shelf Labels became mandatory.

Results

The time it takes to update price information with InforTab has dramatically decreased. Before the installation, paper price tags were printed daily due to price fluctuations, and products had to be checked and replaced in front of the display stand. Whereas several people were in charge of this series of complex tasks, Infortab allows to only have one person checking price changes and immediately reflected them on Infortab Electronic Shelf Labels. The fastidious process was eliminated, resulting in a significant decrease in store operators’ workload and an increase in employee and shopper satisfaction alike. Given the good results that the solution is already showing at Top Mart Bugok Branch, other store managers have decided to adopt InforTab resulting in ten additional store installations by November 2022, adding to the already-installed ten stores. Following this, Seowon Distribution plans to install Electronic Shelf Labels in all their stores.