XON Retail Solutions has enjoyed phenomenal success in the past financial year by gaining a 25% revenue growth over the previous year, which demonstrates robust commitment from retailers to improve operational efficiencies and seek improved customer satisfaction.
XON Retail Solutions provides electronic shelf labels and other retail solutions to retailers in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and DRC.
“Our revenue growth has also come at a time when the rand-dollar exchange rate has weakened considerably, an average of around 20% annually over the past four years,” says Minesh Manga, director at XON.
“We have managed to work around the issue by buying bulk stock from our suppliers at discounted rates and passing those savings on to our customers. But with the weakening exchange rate it has meant we are only able to maintain prices in rands even though we are able to offer a 60% discount over the current price in Europe.”
Several national retail chains have also reaffirmed their commitment to the technology be re-signing their service contracts with XON Retail Solutions. Makro Liquor installed in excess of 80 000 Pricer ESLs two years ago at 13 stores in South Africa and Deepak Gangaram, project manager – IT and projects at Makro, says benefits have been both operational and customer facing.
“We have gained a lot of benefit by automating the price updates in the stores so that our employees are free to perform other tasks that makes them more effective as a result,” he says.
“But our customers have appreciated the fact that they always have a price to view at the shelf, that it is correct and that it matches the price at the tills through our point-of-sale (POS) system. We have also benefitted from the XON Retail Solutions sales and technical team that has provided us with excellent service delivery. Their product is good quality, their turnaround is quick and they are really focused on ensuring we are always up and running.”
XON Retail Solutions has also broadened its portfolio of products with the introduction of Dynamic Displays, a digital moving display that turns most TV’s into a smart TV and allows retailers to showcase products to customers in their stores while reducing the cost of traditional, printed displays.
“Dynamic Displays allows retailers to easily highlight products and special promotions in their stores,” says Manga. “It plugs into the TV’s HDMI port and split screen technology means they can show a picture of the product alongside a video, the price and product information, for example. That really maximises their promotional opportunities and gives them a pragmatic tool to promote sales and good customer relations.”
Retailers are keenly interested in the system for their bulk areas and areas where it hard to display prices, such as delis and bakeries. Customers also use it in DIY dominated by large spaces and products. The displays are attractive, large, quickly convey information in an attractive format and they are easily and quickly updated for products with prices that change often.
