Innovative ICA store triples revenue

Automatic price updates and product information at the shelf

Since ICA merchant, Jan Sikström, took over the ICA Ettan store in Sundsvall (Sweden) in 2016, he has almost tripled the turnover from SEK 15 million to SEK 40 million. Today, the store has 15 employees and approximately 5,000 different items on the shelves. In 2016, a major renovation of the store was carried out, which also introduced a wider range of organic products - and the positive development continues. One of the newer initiatives is the introduction of Breece's electronic shelf labels from Delfi Technologies, which saves both time and costs in the store.

Source: Delfi

In late 2018, Jan Sikström installed Breece's electronic shelf labels from Delfi, after using paper labels and trying out other systems on the market. Breece offers a great flexibility and is a system that is very easy to handle when it comes to connecting displays to products, getting automatic price updates, getting multi-piece prices and product information in general – directly on the digital shelf label.

“We are constantly looking into new initiatives in order to constantly ensure the development of our business. That is also why we implemented electronic shelf labels from Delfi Technologies, which is an incredible help every day in the store. Having previously spent a few days a week preparing campaigns, multi-piece prices, product and price changes, we now spend only a few minutes a week on this, and everything runs automatically”, says grocer Jan Sikström.

Time-saving solution with endless possibilities

“Now we can use the released time on more promotional activities and customer service in the store, where we've especially have improved our fruit and vegetable department. The solution with Breece Mobile makes us more mobile as we can link products to connected displays, move products around, etc. directly at the shelf, without having to sit down in the office”, says grocer Jan Sikström.

ICA Ettan looked at several suppliers before replacing an existing ESL solution. They choice felt on Breece from Delfi Technologies, which according to Jan Sikström could offer a much more user-friendly and technically better system compared to other solutions in the market. The system is incredibly easy to install as the communication device (antenna) can be connected directly to the store's existing ICA network. The antenna uses radio technology at its own frequency, around 868 MHz, and has nothing to do with regular WiFi, making the solution incredibly flexible to install in different environments. Also, one of the requirements was that the solution and the company must be approved by ICA IMS, which Breece and Delfi Technologies is.

“We chose to go with the Breece solution from Delfi because it's incredibly easy to work with the solution. There is tremendous flexibility as well as unlimited possibilities in terms of design and expression on the display. Besides that, it is a future-proof solution in constant development with new functionality”, says Jan Sikström.

The Breece solution is currently installed locally in the store, called Breece On-Premises. It is also possible to choose a cloud solution from Breece where no software or hardware is required in the store, but where everything is in the cloud. Moving the solution to the cloud and increasing the flexibility further, for example where the store can use a regular mobile phone to handle the solution off the shelf, is one of the next planned initiatives for ICA Ettan.

ICA Group, one of the Nordic region's largest players in the grocery trade, has innovation on the agenda. ICA Ettan in Granloholm is no exception – the local ICA Nära store is a first-mover when it comes to implementing improvements in all areas of the business.