Small Business Tips

Shelving Price Labels Solutions: 5 Top Choices for Liquor Stores

Feb 27, 2024 • 6 min read

Have you ever heard the old sales saying, “a confused mind always says no?”

If your pricing labels aren’t clear, customers might be saying “no” to your best, high-margin products before they get anywhere near the register.

Managing labels for rapidly changing SKUs and pricing across your liquor store is no small feat. Suppose you and your staff are busy assisting customers, ordering inventory, and handling the rest of your store’s operations. In that case, shelving price labels can easily fall by the wayside — but they’re critical to your customers’ experience in your store.

This post offers five options for shelving price label solutions you can explore. We’ll cover the pros and cons for each, giving you the information you need to make the best choice for your liquor store.

Uses and Benefits of Shelving Price Labels

You may give shelving price labels little thought when stocking those eye-catching liquor bottles on display. But in reality, your shelving price labels play an essential role in your liquor store, driving sales and streamlining operations. With this in mind, let's consider why you should pay attention to your price labels.

First and foremost, clear and accurate shelf pricing is crucial for delivering a positive customer experience. Shoppers want to identify products and compare prices when browsing. Organized and visible labeling also contributes to a more navigable store environment for customers.

Think of your shelving labels as mini billboards for your in-store promotions. Strategically placed tags highlighting sales, specials, or limited-time pricing help attract shoppers to specific products and bundles. Limited-time discounts and multi-buy deals can entice larger purchase sizes — but only if customers can identify the obvious deals from the shelves.

From an operational perspective, keeping shelf pricing current is critical for streamlined inventory management. Staff can use shelving price labels as a reference when restocking. The ability to swiftly implement pricing updates across all impacted displays also ensures consistency between shelf labels and the data in your point of sale (POS) system.

Finally, uniform price label design and messaging can help further cement your branding and merchandising strategies. Consistent use of signage, fonts, and color schemes helps reinforce your brand. In short, your shelving price labels can impact everything from liquor store sales to store aesthetics.

With this in mind, let’s now examine our list of the top choices for shelving labels for liquor stores.

1. Electronic Shelf Labels

An electronic shelf label (ESL) solution is one option for your shelving price labels. ESLs are digital alternatives to traditional paper shelf labels. ESLs feature displays using e-ink technology, similar to e-reader devices. As a result, these labels can maintain text and pricing without needing much battery power except when updating the display. The labels can then connect wirelessly within a store to receive remote updates.

For retailers, the benefits primarily come down to automation and efficiency. For example, ESLs enable:

Remote, Centralized Updates: Rather than staff needing to print and replace multiple shelf labels manually, you can change prices remotely at the touch of a button. This feature makes repricing products significantly quicker and easier.
Dynamic Pricing: ESLs enable variable pricing based on inventory, time/date, or competitor pricing through rapid display changes.
Improved Accuracy: Having a digital pricing record across all ESL displays reduces the risk of human error that occurs with manual changes.

However, despite the high-tech functionality on offer, ESL adoption has barriers and downsides to consider:

Upfront Investment: Installing an ESL system would require you to retrofit displays across all shelves, representing a major upfront cost. The ROI may take several years to pan out for your store.
Aesthetic Limitations: E-ink displays are more muted, grayscale than paper labels and in-store signage. For some brands, this look may not suit their desired branding.
Potential Reliability Issues: As with implementing any new technology, glitches happen. You need to keep a constant watch on the battery life and wireless connections of thousands of displays to make sure that they perform well without any interruption.

While ESLs offer automation and innovation, implementing them involves balancing productivity against costs and technology considerations.

Sample Provider: E-Shelf Labels

2. Chalkboard or Whiteboard Labels

Another option for shelving price labels in your store is chalkboard or whiteboard labels. These reusable, handwritten options can suit some liquor stores well. As you'd expect, these display labels feature surfaces that can be written on with chalk or dry-erase markers and then wiped clean as needed. They allow prices, product descriptions, and other details to be easily updated on the fly.

Compared to paper or electronic signage, reusable boards offer some advantages:

Customization and Flexibility: Staff can quickly tailor messages to promotions or sales. The ability to erase and rewrite also suits trial-and-error messaging.
Cost-Effective: Despite higher upfront unit costs, chalkboard and whiteboard labels reduce the need to reprint signage over time, saving on supplies.
Unique Personal Touch: The handwritten, less-than-perfect nature of chalk/whiteboard displays lends more authenticity and character than generic or electronic tags.

However, these shelving labels have some downsides to factor in:

Potential for Mess: Legibility can decline as markings fade or become smudged over time before being cleaned. Some customers may perceive unkept signs as cheap or lazy.
Durability: Porous chalkboard surfaces degrade faster than whiteboards. And low-quality whiteboards or chalkboards may stain, warp, or crack over time with heavy use, requiring replacement.
Labor-Intensity: While writing speeds up instantaneous updates, updating numerous signs manually still takes staff significant time versus digital or printed solutions.

The charm and flexibility of chalkboard and whiteboard displays make them a potential go-to for high-touch categories like fresh produce, meat, and bakery items. Their success comes down to diligent cleaning regimens and combining them with digital signage. When maintained and positioned deliberately, handwritten tags can complement other labels cost-efficiently.

Sample Provider: FlexibleMagnets.net

3. Custom Printed Labels

When you think of printed label tags, you may think of shelving price labels featuring generic, black text on white paper. However, custom-printed labels benefit from generic printed labels with branded, on-theme visuals and data.

Custom label production allows stores to incorporate brand assets, messaging, and visual identity down to signage seen by customers every day, including:

Formats: Die-cut shapes, atypical dimensions beyond squares and rectangles
Graphics: Logos, decorative icons, and thematic imagery
Fonts: Custom or brand typefaces beyond standard fonts like Arial and Helvetica
Color Schemes: Vibrant prints using brand palette colors and gradients

Some of the advantages of using custom-printed labels include:

Brand Consistency: Labels coordinate with other in-store and external visual touchpoints when assets and design details match.
Standout Appeal: Vivid, tailored graphics better grab customer attention than plain black and white generics.
Contextual Messaging: Include data like product origins, ingredients, and other point of sale-specific details on your price labels.
Seamless Point of Sale Integration: Labels can include information pulled straight from your point of sale system, limiting manual errors and maximizing the valuable information you can share on each label.

That said, no solution is perfect. Some of the drawbacks of printed labels include:

Production Costs: Custom label printing plates, custom label printers, and the ink and other supplies you need to maintain your labels can add up over time.
Lead Times: Because each label is custom-designed and printed, replacing labels in your store can take longer when prices change.

The expanding possibilities in label printing technology make customized signage more viable for brands wanting shelf displays to reinforce their identity fully. The depth of branding and storytelling in custom signage makes them an important asset, and investing in a robust point of sale system with an integrated label printer can help mitigate challenges you may face with lead times if you had to order them from a third-party label printer.

Sample Provider: DYMO 550 Label and Integrated Shelf Tag Printer (partnered with Bottle POS)

The Best Shelving Price Labels for Your Store

When displaying pricing clearly in your liquor store, you want shelf labels that align with your brand, integrate with your systems, and make pricing control efficient. The options highlighted in this article offer versatile solutions to fit different budgets and business needs.

Ultimately, the ideal shelving price tags come down to your store's aesthetics, customer base, and operations strategy. If you want a clean, customizable label solution that pulls pricing directly from your point of sale for consistency, consider implementing an integrated label printer.

Bottle POS integrates with custom label printers for sleek, printable labels that automatically populate product details, pricing, and promotions from the system. The brandable design and multiple size options facilitate organization while contributing to a polished in-store experience.

Ready to overhaul your price labeling process? See Bottle POS options for shelving tags (and more!) using our build and price tool.

Table of Contents