Price has never been more important to New Zealanders. With the hundredth Woolworths supermarket now moved to electronic shelf labels, the retailer is accelerating its commitment to customer accuracy.
The milestone has been years in the making, with an accelerated plan to introduce the electronic shelf label system into its network launched earlier this year. Stores with electronic shelf labels have reduced errors with very little paper printing and manually changing price tickets required under the new system.
Woolworths New Zealand Director of Stores, Jason Stockill, said the retailer needed to get its on-shelf prices right and introducing electronic shelf labels is a key part.
“We’re privileged to serve over three million customers every week, and we need to ensure the tickets they see on the shelf are accurate and reflect the price they will be charged at checkout,” said Stockill.
“Our team works very hard and takes a lot of care to achieve this, but our stores are busy places, and we have thousands of products that are on special at any time - so, unfortunately, mistakes do happen.”
Stockill continued that whether it was a paper ticket getting knocked out of place or a missed ticket changeover, the retailer knew errors were occurring, which was unacceptable.
“We’re investing in electronic shelf labels and committing to getting it right.”
Woolworths also asks customers to report mistakes when a shelf price isn’t right. The supermarket’s refund policy is that if the price charged for a product is higher than the price shown on the ticket, a full refund is provided, and the customer can keep the product free.
Even if the error is only a couple of cents, Stockill wants to hear about it and make it right. It’s about to be a hectic time in stores with the holiday season, and Woolworths’ priority is still to get its price labelling right, so he urges customers to let the team know if they see something incorrect.
Woolworths New Zealand has also calculated and displayed unit pricing for several years to make it easier for customers to compare prices and make informed shopping choices.
