Lifvs which is currently Europe’s largest unmanned 24 hour grocery store chain, has deployed Pricer Electronic Shelf Labels, to power remote pricing capabilities and digital shelf-edge engagement for its staffless stores. The store chain launched its first shop in 2019 and now operates 27 outlets. Unlike its unmanned grocery counterparts, like Amazon Go, which launched its first cashier-less London outfit in March, or China’s Auchan Minute concept, both of which focus on urban convenience, the Swedish supermarket start-up was founded to bring grocery stores back to remote communities that had lost their local shops over recent years.
Installed in standardised, container-formats so that the stores can be deployed to match demand, shoppers simply open the store via an app, which is then used to scan the barcodes on ESLs and pay for items. As well as making the process simple for the customers, the Internet of Things (IoT) technology that connects the technical components of the store operations are run remotely, meaning being able to centrally control pricing and promotions from the Head Office was critical, as Daniel Lundh, founder and COO of Lifvs, explains.
“Our software is connected to various IoT devices, that is, all the technology in the physical store – everything from shelf labels, doors, the alarm and screens to temperature-controlled boxes. From the start, we knew we wanted ESLs to be able to control the system from the central office.”
Implementing Pricer Plaza, the cloud-based SaaS solution from Pricer, which powers sophisticated in-store digitalisation capabilities, including dynamic pricing and promotions, shelf-edge imaging and optimisation and advanced replenishment, Lifvs can control pricing centrally in real-time. The ESL’s open API infrastructure connects to Lifvs’ unified commerce platform, which includes built-in AI that lets the unmanned supermarket chain anticipate when it needs to place orders to minimise out-of-date products and food waste. It also feeds in data to inform stock assortment and ranging.
“We’re building a chain in which we need to be agile with our rotation of goods,” Daniel Lundh continued. “We should be able to quickly exchange and adapt our selection. It’s easy to load a new item into the system and the information automatically goes directly to the ESLs in the stores, removing unnecessary labour hours for store staff.”
“Our entire business model is based on being able to retain a price level for consumers, which means we need to be able to control costs. We do that through a smaller store with lower rent and fewer staffed hours, which lowers our staffing costs… and everything the staff doesn’t have to do lowers our ongoing operating costs. By creating economies of scale, we should be able to survive on a smaller customer base than traditional stores were able to do,” he added.
Duncan Potter, CMO at Pricer, commented: “We love the Lifvs concept and how it is quickly scaling the unmanned store space, proving that with clever, connected cloud-based infrastructure, the staffless store concept needn’t be the preserve of Amazon. With centrally controlled pricing and promotions through the ESLs, Lifvs has the control to dynamically adapt pricing or product information to reflect changing assortment and ranging, whilst increasing digital customer engagement at the shelf-edge.”
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