 An ethnography of Electronic Shelf Labels: The resisted digitalization of prices in contemporary supermarketsBastien Soutjis, Franck Cochoy and Johan Hagberg Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2017, vol. 39, issue C, 296-304 Abstract: Contemporary retail markets have experienced and are experiencing an important digitalization shift in the form of computers and associated technologies. Among a large array of digital innovations, Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) deserve particular attention. ESLs, despite their long history and many benefits, have not become ubiquitous. The purpose of this paper is to account for this “resisted evolution†of digitalized prices. It draws theoretically upon science and technology studies, infrastructure studies, market studies, and previous literature on price representations in retailing. It draws empirically on a combination of ethnographic and historical methods. The paper shows that ESLs do not replace paper prices, but, rather, work together with them: on one hand, they compete to represent prices with their respective features, and on the other, they co-operate in order to reinforce the visibility and attractiveness of products and promotions. Keywords: Market studies; Electronic shelf labels; Price representation; Retailing; Visibility (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:39:y:2017:i:c:p:296-304 DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2017.08.009 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier |
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