Dan Murphy’s has finalised its rollout of Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL), which will see all 273 branded stores fitted with the technology by the end of June, driving large scale efficiencies and elevating the customer experience.

ESLs are digital displays beneath products operated from a central system, enabling Dan Murphy’s ‘price beats’ to roll out on shelves within minutes.

Dan Murphy’s managing director, Agi Pfeiffer Smith said, “We have price beats happening every day in real-time to support our lowest liquor price guarantee, meaning our team can spend more time face-to-face with customers and less time changing over ticketed prices manually.

“Price beats happen with the press of a button now in every one of our stores, and we are confident based on our trials of ESLs to date that the technology mix we have in place is delivering for customers.

“ESLs are also resulting in some positive sustainability outcomes while generating considerable cost savings right across the business. This is a great example of how technology can solve tangible business problems.”

The ESL system can promptly update prices as required and will save around 37,000 pieces of paper per store – equating to around 10 million sheets annually across the business – and will save $500,000 in printing costs.

By removing the need for staff to manually update shelf price labels, ESLs will drive team efficiency with each store being able to recoup an average of 12 hours’ worth of staff hours each week per store.

Fitted with near field communication (NFC), customers can hold their smartphone to the ESL and their Dan Murphy’s app or browser to view the product listing, tasting notes and reviews (currently available for wines and spirits).

The technology is also compatible with handheld radio frequency (RF) devices used by team members for stock control and retrieval. When team members pack online orders, they can search for a product on their device and a light from the ESL will flash, reducing the time taken to pick a product and improving order fulfilment accuracy.

The completion of the ESL rollout follows the launch of a trial using AI technology to monitor and scrape online liquor prices across Australia to verify the Lowest Liquor Price Guarantee (LLPG) on drinks at Dan Murphy’s. Through its use of AI price comparison platform and scraping tool Similar, conversions have increased up to 30% once customers see the verification banner online.