Mobiquity

In days past, grocery-store employees spent hours labeling and stocking items onto shelves. Altierre, a digital tag-and-sensor developer sees a new grocery store. One where prices are changed wirelessly using small digital price tags and would update the price on the shelf and checkout counter simultaneously. Altierre’s envisions between 20,000 and 25,000 tags per store costing about $5 each. They say that with the savings in time and labor would mean that the investment would pay off in about two-and-a-half years. Sunit Saxena, Altierre chief executive, believes stores have not yet jumped onto the idea because “the fear is, they’ll put 30,000 of these in a store where people are used to seeing paper, and it will be a drastic change. They worry that their sales will drop.” The idea itself is nothing new. France has used the technique successfully for years. At the moment, Kohl’s is the only U.S. retailer with Altierre’s scanners.