Electronic shelf labels to generate $601.9 mln in 2010

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It's been tried before, has something changed?

The market for electronic shelf labels has always been an enigma for retailers given the possibility for returns on their investment that is unlike anything they've seen for other major capital projects, however costs of the ESLs themselves and inadequate technology has caused many projects in the past to be shelved. There were several companies that have attempted to provide ESLs with wired vs. wireless communication, battery vs. wired power, all having failed due to costs and product shortcomings that didn't meet the reality of deploying 10,000s ESLs per store. The problems were poor communication, difficultly in deployment, and lots of infrastructure to make them work. iSuppli's assessment of the market size may be based on another wave technology start-ups that are attempting to solve the cost, communication, and deployment barriers. A company named ILID is using existing lights within a store to communicate updates to their ESLs, however their is infrastructure to make this work through the lighting and electrical system. Another company named W5 Networks, claims on their website a breakthrough in radio technology were the store merely hangs 3-5 wireless access points and they can have two-way communication between every ESL. We'll have to see if this company can meet the cost curve required of retails which from various technology analysts are estimated at $4-5 per ESL to make the numbers work for retailers. If it's true and one of these companies has the right ESL finally, then I bet the 601.9M projection in 2010 is realistic, with a 3-4x increase by 2015.

Posted by: TechForRetail   Posted on: 09/10/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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