The lights power the labels in Aussie supermarkets

Electronic shelf label vendor ILID is totting up Australian supermarket rollouts of its patented technology, which the company claimed had already succeeded in department stores here and overseas.

ILID, a subsidiary of IT and services provider UXC's federation of companies, claimed to be in the commercialisation phase of its self-titled electronic shelf labelling system.

'ILID is the only system in the world that uses the fluorescent lighting system within the stores as its power source, an Australian invention patented in 23 countries,' parent UXC said in a statement to the ASX.

'Other systems use radio frequency, infra-red or hard-wiring.' The ILID system allows pricing to be altered remotely, meaning staff no longer had to manually change the tickets on the shelves and pricing would more accurately reflect the latest prices in a store's database, the company said.

The company was implementing around 18,000 ILID electronic labels for Ritchies IGA supermarket in Hastings, Victoria, and had just completed an installation of about 20,000 ILID electronic labels for a Foodland supermarket in Mirrabooka, Western Australia.

'Customers are happy with the guaranteed up-to-date prices,' UXC said.

The Ritchies deal could potentially expand to all 30 Ritchies supermarkets, the company said.

UXC said the electronic labels could also be used to advertise special deals and in-store events. The labels worked in refrigerators and freezers as well as at room temperature, it said.

ILID had also deployed the system at Kmart sites in Chadstone and Burwood in Melbourne. 'These two installations consist of over 40,000 labels each, ranking them amongst the world's largest electronic shelf-labelling installations,' UXC said.

The company's electronic labels were also installed in IGA Coldstream in Victoria and overseas, in C-Gro Bremen Cash & Carry in Germany.