Walmart Is Digitizing 4,600 Store Shelves | Fast Five Shorts

Walmart is expanding its digital shelf label technology to all 4,600 of its US stores, completing what is likely the single largest electronic shelf label rollout in history.

According to numerous sources, roughly 2,300 Walmart locations are already running digital shelf labels supplied by Vuzion.

For those that know us well, is a longtime sponsor of our work here at omnitalk.

I have to single that out and the chain now expects the technology to be chain wide within the next year.

The system allows associates to manage price changes through a centralized platform using a mobile app.

What used to take days of manual paper tag swaps can now be done in hours, freeing associates to focus on customer service.

Two features stand out operationally.

One, Stock to Light, which uses LED guidance to help associates pinpoint exactly where items need restocking and two, Pick to Light which helps fulfill online orders faster and more accurately.

Walmart has been explicit as well and this is important that the labels will not be used for dynamic or surge pricing.

The system operates on a closed loop, does not track shoppers and does not collect personal data.

Jen, we are starting off hot this morning.

You get the A and M put you on the spot question right out of the get go and let me just tell you it's a doozy.

So here it is.

The question is together we vocalize strong excitement around the industry's introduction of digital self labels and specifically during Walmart's rollout.

Given their leadership position here, how do you expect Walmart to most likely leverage the labor time savings touted by the technology imbalance between reinvesting into in store execution versus capture actual total labor spend savings?

Okay, better you than me.

First of all I will say I love this move.

It's 2026, right?

Cars are driving themselves.

I think it's about time for digital shelf labels.

We've heard about them, we've seen them in sort of test mode.

I love this move from Walmart.

The best talent out there does not enjoy the monotony of price checks and price changes and chasing out of stocks in a reactive manner.

Right?

They're working on their heels in that world.

They're looking for roles and opportunities where they can actually show up and capitalize on opportunities and stay forward focused.

The store operations teams and leaders that we talk to on a weekly basis and really daily basis would certainly vote yes for this.

When I think back to my district manager days and even at that level I was always involved in little tasks like hey, this sign isn't correct and it's a store walk that could have been focused on where we could do better, where we could serve customers better, how we could be more proactive and increase that basket size.

And instead at a district manager level, I'm walking the floor saying like we gotta get that price changed.

I wonder what it is, what should it be?

Right.

If all of this can be done digitally, I think it's a big win.

I think the opportunity here is to simplify the store employees role.

Right.

It's become so complex and convoluted that I wonder how many store employees are actually out there thinking are the shelves full and are the customers engaged?

Like those are two questions that if, if I were leading store ops, those are the only two things that matter in that store experience.

I guess the store should be clean as well.

But if we can cut the rest and reassign through this automation or this technology in this case, I think it's a big win.

So to answer the A and M question, what does this mean for payroll expense?

Yeah, I don't expect, or I should say hope that they capture any labor savings but rather that they reinvest this into in store execution.

So.

So I hope to see zero savings on staffing and that's hard to say from a P and L standpoint.

Right.

But that labor should be reallocated to driving sales, finding customers that need help in the aisles, proactively finding opportunities to surprise and delight.

And you know what they say, sales cures.

All right, so go get the sales and let the labor expense take care of itself.

I would say this on that sort of surprise and delight factor.

Walmart's known for a whole lot of things.

They've been crushing it in a lot of ways.

They've been a lot of your headlines right.

Over the past few years.

But in store services is not one that comes to mind.

You don't think I'm going to walk into a Walmart store and get fantastic service.

Someone's going to stop and ask me if I need help.

Someone's going to be there if I have a question.

I see this as an opportunity to change that experience in the stores while still minimizing those out of stocks and the price discrepancies.

But really I would treat this investment as an investment that will get that ROI on the additional sales and loyalty, not by cutting labor.

Well Jen, as our resident talent expert, I have to tell you, I Respectfully, respectfully, 100% agree with you.

I 100% agree with you.

I do, I do.

And the reason I say that is, you know, yes, you're going to in theory get labor savings from reducing the workload of everyday price changes.

But as we know if for those in the industry we've known that that was never enough to push ESLs over the edge of adoption, like it just wasn't.

The savings just wasn't significant enough.

The real benefit comes from in my opinion, you know, really three things.

It comes for quicker and better restocking, quicker and better shelf picking and the other point about you're saying about the science, more effective promotions because your promotions are actually signed correctly and that is a huge impact on the actual revenue going through the cash register.

So I don't see this changing payroll allocation all that much.

Particularly when you look at the landscape of how omnichannel retailing is done and, and to your point about Walmart and service, the service at Walmart is just having the stuff on the shelves that needs to be on the shelves and having it priced right.

That's what Walmart just wants to do better every day because that's what their business model is.

Their business model is in on like high touch service and it's never going to be.

It's about getting people in and out with what they want.

And so for me it's not going to change payroll all that much in the short term particularly because it's just going to make Walmart more efficient and more efficient still, still means more profit dollars coming to the bottom line at the end of the day.

And the other important side note in this story I think too GN before we move on is now all other US grocers and mass merchants too which really there's only other, really only one other one which is Target.

But all other of those groups of retailers are now 4,600 stores behind on a technology that we A&M2 have have been espousing on this show for eight years.

It's been eight years I've been talking about this and now Walmart's all in on it for 4,600 stores.

So, so kudos to them.

It, it feels like one of those about time moments is what you're saying Chris.

And I think I would 100% agree.

Of course it's an investment and you know they've been slow to make investments in retail with some of the uncertainty over the last few years.

But why not?

I see, I see zero reason not to.

It feels like all of it is a win.

Yeah.

And the other point I'd make too there on that point is yes, 100% agree.

And then we talked about Carrefour's announcement a couple weeks ago, because the other point about this, to truly unlock this, you have to get some element of computer vision into the operation as well.

And you can do that through fixed position cameras, you can do that through robotics.

Not sure how Walmart's going to play that.

I imagine they're going to be testing that with fusion as well, similar to care for.

But that is that, that is the unlock here.

And Walmart again is 4,600 stores ahead of everyone else.

That's the main point that the listeners should be taking away.