Case Study: Railway Hotel, Melbourne

Overview

The Railway Hotel has a connected bottle shop that operates 24/7. Due to these extended hours, their business model features two-tier pricing depending on the time of day. Consequently, all 2,000 products in-store are updated twice daily, a task that is overwhelming for staff to perform manually.

Client Objectives

  • Simplified pricing change

  • Partner with a supplier who went the extra mile to deliver in constraints of a 24-hour business

  • Replace complicated and out of date self labelling systems with a simplified, cost effective system

“The price change system is now simpler and easy to manage.”
- Marty Le, Bottleshop Manager

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Background

The Railway Hotel- Windsor is an iconic Melbourne Pub. Not only does the Railway Hotel offer patrons award-winning fine dining, a spectacular deck bar with enviable views of the city, it also boasts one of the few 24-hour Bottle shops in Melbourne. 

And that’s where FutureShelf came into the picture. With over 2,000 products stocked in their bottle shop, along with multiple promotions having an electronic shelf pricing system that was streamlined, clear and easy to read and of course cost effective was critical for the smooth running of a 24-hour business. 

The team at The Railway Hotel were not completely new to electronic shelf labelling, having installed an older ILID system years ago. But their system had grown out of date and become cumbersome, complicated and expensive to manage. They were also looking for a system that had fewer hardware requirements than what they currently had. 

An electrical fire which affected the lighting in the old system gave Marty Le, Bottle Shop Manager, the perfect opportunity to review new solutions and ultimately engage FutureShelf to implement their system. 

Client Selection Criteria

The key factors that gave esLabels the edge were: 

  • Labels update via radio frequency technology

  • Minimal infrastructure set up and costs

  • Ease of use to update the pricing to the labels in the esLabels software

  • Replacement of batteries is simple and cost effective

Solution

1. E-Paper Labels

Future Shelf (formerly esLabels) was chosen by The Railway Hotel to install e-paper labels. The labels were displayed using a variety of accessories for the different areas.

Benefits of e-paper labels include;

  • Flexible display options – any font, any layout

  • Easy to read e-paper display (kindle technology)

  • Widest viewing angle, no reflection

  • Additional management screens can be enabled

  • NFC functionality available on request

  • Low power consumption (5 year battery life based on 4 updates/day)

  • Operating Temperature: 0°C to 40°C – suited the chillers

2. LCD Labels

LCD segmented screen technology, displays pricing, units, some text and red promo call out 

  • 3 colour flashing light option available

  • Cost effective solution

  • 8 page updates

Client Experience

“The installation process was managed well by the team at Future Shelf (formerly esLabels). The team responded quickly to our requests to ensure we got the solution we were after.” 

Outcomes

  • The Railway hotel now is running their 24 hour bottle shop business using the Future Shelf (formerly esLabels) system. 

  • For Marty and his team is a cleaner and clearer shelf label. 

  • Managing pricing updates has also become a much easier process. 

  • The process is now simple and fast which ensures the business can maximise pricing change opportunities.