First, electronic price tag technology overview

Electronic price tag, also known as electronic shelf label, is a kind of electronic display device with an information sending and receiving function. Text, numbers, pictures, color blocks, barcodes and QR codes can be displayed, mainly used in supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies, and other electronic labels displaying price information.

Electronic price tags are placed on shelves to display price and other commodity information, through wired or wireless networks connected to the application of enterprise commodity information database, the formation of a complete electronic price tag system, electronic price tags can respond in real time to the management of the change of prices issued in the background demand, can quickly, collectively change prices, so that online and offline information to keep pace, overcome the traditional paper label hard shortcomings.

Second, the advantages of electronic price tag technology

Compared with the traditional paper price tag, the advantages of applying electronic price tag technology are reflected in saving operating costs, improving management efficiency, improving user experience and innovative marketing model.

Save operating costs: Due to the application of electronic price tags, manual application, price adjustment, printing, sales staff to the front shelf replacement process can be omitted. Prices in all stores are managed in a unified manner from the background, with merchants changing prices at the touch of a button. Example: save labor costs, a company with 20,000 electronic price tags, can save 10-15 labor. Secondly, the reuse of electronic price tags, environmental protection is of great significance, only in the replacement price consumption of electricity, usually show basically do not consume electricity, saving a lot of paper marking, printers, ink. Power and other material costs, electronic price tag average service life of 5 years, during which the labor costs and printing supplies and other material costs of the sum of sufficient to cover the cost of up-front inputs.

Improve management efficiency: improve the efficiency of price change, unified price change, a single variable price, through the handheld terminal to the goods scanning code offline modification, while feedback to the server for information retention. Second, improve picking efficiency, the system has positioning function, easy to pick. The traditional picking process averages 15 minutes to pick up a list, public information to understand, electronic price tag box horse shop, picker each pick 56 seconds. At the same time, electronic price tag can display inventory in real time, convenient replenishment.

Enhance the user experience: electronic price tag uniform appearance and specification size, beautiful and clean, not easy to drop, installation solid. The display is informative, showing QR codes, barcodes.

Innovative marketing model: electronic price tag and ERP association, online offline promotion real-time synchronization, offline users to online conversion, electronic price tag combined with two-dimensional code to provide more preferential ways to support users to scan barcodes, two-dimensional code link to the line, to achieve offline user conversion, multi-dimensional data collection, to achieve accurate marketing.

Third, the composition of electronic price tags

(1) Electronic price tag as the core of the system, Bluetooth module, and electronic ink screen selection combination is favored

Display materials to choose electronic ink screen, network communication to choose Bluetooth low-energy module is the mainstream choice of manufacturers.

(2) The AP base station acts as a gateway and is responsible for network management

Base station down using Bluetooth and electronic price tag connection, up can use wired or wireless network and system server connection, as a gateway, responsible for protocol conversion, electronic price tag management. When the background staff changes the price, the price change order is first issued to the gateway, and then the gateway selects the appropriate time to send the specified electronic price tag accurately. In order to make the electronic price tag more power-saving, more computing work will be undertaken by the gateway, shielding the electronic price tag does not need the action.

(3) Electronic price tag management platform, open online and offline

Electronic price tag management platform is the operating platform for management personnel to manage price tags, providing the function of modifying commodity information in the background, electronic price tag at the front desk, and online commodity information changing at the same time.

(4) Handheld terminals are easy for staff to manage

PDA handheld terminal, the clerk in the deployment of the blank price tag put away, and then use PDA one by one to establish the corresponding relationship between the electronic price tag and the commodity, and finally unified in the electronic price tag management platform under the template, determine the price. If you want to modify or off the shelf of a certain item, the clerk uses PDA to scan the bar code on the electronic price tag, can be directly managed. At the same time, the modified commodity information can also be displayed synchronously on the online service platform, you can always do information synchronization.

Fourth, the use of functional interface

Support the network port, connect the electronic price tag management system center server.

Support for UART or USB interface Ofra/Zigbee function extension, base station to send wireless message information to the electronic price tag, ZigBee communication mode low power consumption and easy networking, high transmission rate, LoRa communication mode communication distance, and low power consumption.

Industrial-grade design and materials, high-quality to ensure long-term stable operation of the base station after installation.

Support for extended 4G and WiFi, network deployment solutions are more convenient and flexible. Wifi network card sd card serial port spi poe power supply, no interface required.

Recommended platform: FETMX6UL-C SoM (Gateway Only) FET4418-C SoM (Gateway and On-premises Server)