It turns out that the price tags in supermarkets are electronic screens!!!

Reviewer: Gao Hui

PhD in Optical Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Have you been going to the supermarket more frequently recently?

During this period, my friends must have been shopping in supermarkets. I don’t know if you have noticed that no matter whether it is a large or small supermarket, there are different special promotions almost every day, but a problem arises: if the promotions are different every day, then do the supermarket price tags also need to be rewritten by the salesperson every day?

Are the big black words on the supermarket price tags handwritten?

Source丨Editor

In fact, if you pay attention, you will find that the various paper price tags on the supermarket shelves have quietly turned into small "screens" without you noticing. You don't need to write by hand at all, as long as you enter the relevant information in the system background, the price tag will directly display the promotional price.

In fact, electronic price tags have basically become the standard of the new retail industry. Many large supermarkets and various new convenience stores and unmanned convenience stores have applied electronic price tags to replace traditional paper price tags. Today, let's take a look at what the "black technology" of electronic price tags is that makes people "unclear but impressive".

Source丨Editor

Why use electronic price tags?

Now, we can find electronic price tags on the shelves of many supermarkets and convenience stores, so what are the benefits of using electronic price tags?

First of all, supermarkets have a wide variety of goods and countless categories, and the price tags of goods are updated frequently, especially during holidays when shopping malls will have crazy promotions, and the frequency of price tag replacement will reach a peak. However, the replacement of traditional paper labels requires employees to print, cut, verify and replace labels in multiple steps, which not only wastes time, but also consumes manpower and material resources. The use of display boards can greatly reduce the workload of supermarkets when replacing paper labels, reduce labor costs, and change label signs more quickly and easily.

In addition to displaying prices, electronic price tags can also display various related information sources. At the same time, electronic price tags can also keep the price of items on the shelf consistent with the actual price at the checkout counter, which can effectively improve consumers' shopping experience.

In addition, the display board also has the advantages of low power consumption, good flexibility, environmental protection and low carbon, good portability, simple operation, timely update and low price.

Source丨Editor

Finally, after using electronic price tags, each product has its own unique ID. When supermarket employees need to know the specific location of a product, they only need to go through the background to see the location of the product on the shelf, achieve accurate positioning, and improve work efficiency.

The principle of ink screen

The electronic ink screen, also known as electronic paper display technology (ElectroPhoretic Display, EPD), is the result of many years of research by Joseph Jacobson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his team.

In fact, the principle of the ink screen is very simple. It consists of two substrates with a lot of electronic ink on them. Electronic ink can be regarded as a very tiny capsule, each of which is filled with liquid charges. When a negative electric field is applied to both ends of the microcapsule, the white particles with positive charges will move to the negative pole of the electric field under the action of the electric field. At the same time, the particles with negative charges will move to the bottom of the microcapsule and hide. In this way, each pixel can display white or black.

The microstructure of electronic ink

Source: Wikipedia

To understand the structure of the microcapsules of electronic ink, we can imagine the microcapsule as a large ball. Inside the large ball are dozens of small balls. The small balls are filled not with air but with pigment. If we look at the large ball from the top, we can see many white small balls suspended inside, so the large ball looks white. If we look at the large ball from the bottom, you can only see the pigment water, so the small balls look black. If we put thousands of large balls in a container and move the small balls between the top and bottom of the large ball, we can see that the container changes color. This is the basic principle of how electronic ink works.

When the power is on, the black ball floats up and the white ball falls down, showing black text on a white background.

Source: Wikipedia

In addition to supermarket price tags, e-ink screen/e-paper display technology is also widely used in other places in life, such as some e-readers and electronic word cards for memorizing words.

Source丨What other “black technologies” are there in a shopping website supermarket?

In addition to electronic price tags, we can also see a lot of "black technology" in supermarkets. The most common one is the application of Internet of Things technology.

In order to detect the quality of fresh goods, supermarkets will upload the refrigeration standards of various fresh goods to the supermarket Internet of Things system and attach electronic tags (Radio Frequency Identification technology, referred to as "RFID tags") to the goods. In this way, when the goods enter the refrigerator, the system will automatically detect and identify the goods, and adjust the temperature and humidity of the refrigerator according to the pre-established preservation plan. When the goods exceed the shelf life, the system will issue an expiration warning to remind supermarket staff to replace them in time.

Application of IoT Technology

Source: Changjiang Cloud

When consumers put RFID-tagged goods into a shopping cart equipped with an RFID antenna, the system will upload this information to the Internet of Things control system, and the system will begin to analyze the sales status of the goods, formulate a scientific supply plan, and strive to achieve zero inventory. In order to allow consumers to understand the detailed information and prices of goods in a timely manner, many supermarkets will use mobile phone scanning and recognition technology. Just take out your phone and scan it, you can quickly understand all the information of the product and shop easily.

Nowadays, we can also see unmanned cash registers in major supermarkets, 24-hour convenience stores and other shops. When the goods are scanned by the unmanned cash register, the screen will show the purchased goods, and consumers can choose various payment methods. General commodity anti-theft monitoring can also be carried out by gravity monitoring. After the consumer scans the goods and places them on the platform, the sensor can detect whether the purchased goods match the weight of the goods in the warehouse by identifying the weight of the goods.

Unmanned cash register

Source: Today's Hechuan Network

We have reason to believe that with the advancement of technology, more "black technology" will enter supermarkets in the future and bring convenience to our lives.