ZBD Solutions

Lisbon plays host to ZBD's annual partner conference

We were delighted to welcome representatives from virtually all of our VISION partners in Lisbon last week for our 3rd annual partner conference. It was a productive and enjoyable couple of days, and thankfully, luck was on our side: the volcanic ash didn't impact our flights; nor did BA's scheduled strikes and we even experienced a mini-heatwave!

The partner conference provides us with the perfect opportunity to gather all of our partners together and give them an insight into the many developments at ZBD. The conference was a packed day, as always, and proved to be very interactive, as partners were keen to share their thoughts and experiences with us, and bounced ideas off one another. We invited some of our partners to present customer case studies to the rest of the group, where they have been successful in their territories which proved to be really valuable to the rest of our partner network.

The past year has been hugely successful for us, with the support and commitment of our partners, and we've made significant progress since last year's event in Tallinn, Estonia. We are lucky to be supported by a dynamic group of people who are all dedicated to pushing ZBD and our next generation of electronic shelf labels to the next level, and keen to share their experiences with our growing partner community. And judging by the enthusiasm shown by all partners, we'll be announcing more customer wins very soon.

ZBD's VISION partner network grows year on year, and 2010 saw us welcome new partners from Slovenia, Spain and Greece.

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com

A fresh solution for reducing product wastage

Further to our recent news announcements that Hungary's Unio Coop and CBA stores have implemented our electronic shelf labels within their fruit & Veg department, it's becoming more common for grocery retailers to deploy ESL within their 'fresh' departments. These departments, which offer perishable products, are often responsible for significant financial losses every year through the inability to sell products nearing their sell-by date.

One way of eliminating product wastage is to reduce prices and make pricing more attractive to customers. Where markdown prices usually displayed on paper labels can devalue the product, with ZBD's electronic shelf labels, price markdowns can be made in seconds, and are invisible, protecting retailers' margins at the same time.

It often isn't feasible for many retailers to udpate pricing manually, potentially several times a day. However, implementing electronic shelf labels within perishable departments enables stores to make price changes quickly and wirelessly, saving store staff from having to print out new paper labels and distribute them within store, which help to make the store more efficient. ESL should also enable the store to sell more products at a lower price, eliminating costly product wastage.

We know that not all grocery retailers are ready to go down the route of deploying electronic shelf labels storewide quite yet. But installing them within a department gives them a chance to test the benefits first hand, without having to commit to rolling the solution out.

These are just one of the cooperative retailers that we're working with, and we'll be announcing more very soon. 

Sarah Hool
Marketing Manager
sarah.hool@zbdsolutions.com