Huge change to supermarket shelves at Woolworths

Woolworths has debuted a major change to its supermarket shelves, with shoppers spotting a new sale price sticker system.

Instead of the traditional large, yellow price tickets, which were placed over the previous price and are easy for savvy shoppers to notice, a digital system has been introduced in their place.

The labels are still yellow, but are smaller and more difficult to spot.

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A photo of the new pricing system has been shared on the Facebook page 'Markdown Addicts Australia' by shopper Sharon, who is clearly not impressed.

"Not liking the sale signs at Woolworths. You have to look really hard to see them. I only noticed cause I knew cenovis vitamins were half price but couldn't see any tags," she writes.

"Wasn't til look closely I saw they are no longer hanging over the original but replacing the original. DO NOT LIKE."

A robust conversation about the new system has ensued, with many also unimpressed with the change.

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"I don't like it at all either," writes one.

"Omg! That will be more time consuming," says another.

Others praised the move, with one commenting, "Good, amount of paper being wasted was crazy!" and another adding, "Shelves do look better though."

One Woolworths shopper labelled the change a "cost-cutting exercise".

"From a marketing perspective it probably sounds good in theory," they write. "But in-situ shoppers will find it hard to recognise specials and markdowns. It's subtle. Interesting to see if other supermarkets will follow. As you can tell, I'm a retail graphic designer."

A Woolworths spokesperson tells 9Honey the new sales pricing system has been on trial for the last 12 months.

"Over the last 12 months, we've been trialling electronic shelf labels in select stores," they state. "These electronic labels are designed to reduce paper, update the latest prices and specials in real time and reduce manual ticketing to allow our team to focus on serving customers and replenishing shelves.

"We appreciate these customers' feedback on the trial and will continue to gather more feedback over the coming months."

They further explain Woolworths worked with its supply partner to create custom-sized electronic shelf labels to allow stores to communicate product information as large as possible, which has the added benefit of allowing team members to "track where a product is on the shelf, helping them locate items quickly".