Top 50 Indie EG On The Move (EGOTM) is trialling a new electronic shelf-edge labelling system that tracks on-shelf availability, at its Frontier Park site.
Arif Adam, convenience retail manager at EGOTM, explains: “We’ve had a lot of people try to offer us a solution in this space. But the reason we’re leaning towards Vusion is because of its unique selling point – the Captana solution, which is a series of small cameras dotted around the store. And they communicate with the electronic shelf-edge label (ESEL).”
Vusion describes Captana as having mini wireless cameras (GDPR compliant) that give retailers visibility into every shelf and product in-store, at all times, without monitoring individuals. It is said to deliver real-time shelf monitoring data and analysis, to help run stores more efficiently, increasing top-line revenue and gross profit margin with AI-enabled retail forecasting.
Adam says: “Captana can tell you all about on-shelf availability. What time was a product in stock? When was it out of stock? It can also show you things like planogram compliance. It gives us a bird’s eye view of the store and means we can make sure the shelves are fully stocked at all times, which will result in a better customer experience.”
Captana is currently being trialled at the group’s Frontier Park site but Adam is very keen to get it into more sites to get a bigger sample. The cameras are focused on high revenue generating categories such as soft drinks, where it is crucial that there’s compliance to planograms and good availability at all times
Adam says feedback so far from Frontier Park has been that it is very beneficial: it saves staff time, it ensures pricing is correct and it helps eliminate out of stocks. “The results from Frontier Park were that availability was unusually high. It was a nice surprise that the staff are already on it at that site,” he explains.
Data from Captana is transferred to a dashboard where users can easily identify sales patterns such as the days and hours where there is the lowest availability.
Captana is already being used successfully by Shell in France and Benelux.
With regards to return on investment (ROI) Adam is confident: “Vusion tells us that for one of their other clients, increasing on-shelf availability added 2% to their margin,” he says.
Sander Garnier, solution engineer at Vusion, says the system has been built to be flexible, and it can be used on older systems as well as more modern ones. “We will always find a solution that works for both parties,” he says, adding that installation is quick and easy.
“We can ship the product to you and send you a guide or we can do a full installation including two days’ training on site,” he adds.
Paul Mulder, account executive at Vusion, advises retailers that the flexibility of the system means it is not just for the ‘big boys’ in retailing and that it can work well in smaller forecourt businesses too.
