“It all speaks to how important shopper education and engagement truly are at retail,” says David Williams, Executive Vice President of Business Development at Cornerstone for Natural. “The results speak for themselves. Retail items equipped with Smart Shelf Tags dramatically outgrew their categories.”
Smart Shelf Tags are retail shelf tags equipped with Eli Codes which, when scanned by a smartphone, display digital content such as videos, PDFs, web content, images, and product content and attributes, with the goal of engaging and educating in-store shoppers, thereby increasing sales. The tags also support retailers, by providing an effective and inexpensive way to train in-store associates about the products on the shelf.
“It comes as no surprise that partnering with our suppliers to provide our shoppers with great product information at the shelf would increase sales,” commented Jonathan Lawrence, Fresh Thyme's Senior Director of Grocery and Natural Living. “What is surprising is that more retailers haven’t caught on to it.”
Related: Mastering the In-Store Market ELI Codes Enhanced Through SPINS Partnership Fresh Thyme Donates $150,000 In Support of Food Security
Cornerstone’s CEO, David Boos, added: “2022 will be the year of the QR code. Businesses owe it to themselves to develop a comprehensive QR code strategy well beyond simply pointing people to a website.”The analysis performed by SPINS was based on retail sales of items at Fresh Thyme Market for the 12-month period ending 10/3/2021. It looked at unit sales rather than prices, in order to minimize the influence of price fluctuation and seasonality.
