Dan Murphy’s is using AI and shelf price technology to improve its business

Dan Murphy’s will soon be able to change the price of items at the press of a button, as the liquor giant uses new tech to bolster its ‘lowest price’ credentials.

Liquor retail giant Dan Murphy’s is increasingly turning to AI to protect one of its most important corporate values, its lowest price guarantee, as it harnesses lightning speed scanning and analysing tools to check on liquor store rivals and their price movements.

Dan Murphy’s managing director Agi Pfeiffer-Smith told The Australian the liquor retailer was using the new tech to “scrape” data on liquor prices.

“So one thing we are doing is in the digital world in particular, is we are using AI technology to monitor and scrape online liquor prices at the moment,” she said. “And basically what we can see now is on our website, is where that scrapes happened, we can put up a little stamp that says this price needs to be checked, be verified, and we want to be the lowest price in the market.

“And what we see is that when the customers see that, that actually increases price trust. Then we see conversions (sales) go up as part of that, which is pretty exciting as that rolls through.”

Now, the next step in the company’s AI revolution is taking place to leverage this data to speed up the time to change prices of wine, beer and spirits in its physical stores.

Dan Murphy’s, the liquor store with 273 outlets and which is owned by Endeavour Group, has announced it has finalised the rollout of electronic shelf labels (ESL), which will see all of its branded stores fitted with the innovative technology by the end of this month.

These ESLs are digital displays beneath products operated from a central system, enabling Dan Murphy’s core value of ‘price beats’ to roll out on shelves within minutes.

“We have price beats happening every day in real-time to support our lowest liquor price guarantee, meaning our team can spend more time face-to-face with customers and less time changing over ticketed prices manually,” Ms Pfeiffer-Smith said.

Dan Murphy’s believes the use of the AI price comparison platform and scraping tool has seen conversions increased by up to 30 per cent once customers see the “verified this morning lowest liquor price guarantee banner” next to the item.

Australia’s leading liquor retailer Dan Murphy’s has finalised its rollout of Electronic Shelf Labels (ESL), which will see all 273 branded stores fitted with the innovative technology by the end of this month.

With AI and technology combining to quickly check competitors, verify prices and then change Dan Murphy’s prices at a much faster pace it should reinforce the retailer’s commitment to lowest prices, which is at the core of Dan Murphy’s success.

“The technology is checking and continually updating it (prices). And we can be much more responsive to what is a fast-changing world,” said Ms Pfeiffer-Smith.

“The ESL system will have the capability to promptly update prices as required. The implementation of ESLs will save around 37,000 pieces of paper per store, amounting to a saving of around 10 million sheets annually across the business.”

It can take around 3 minutes for the prices to be changed across its store network once the button is pushed at its HQ.

As ESLs replace the need for manual printing, around half a million dollars will be saved in printing costs.

“By removing the need for staff to manually update shelf price labels, ESLs will drive team efficiency with each store being able to recoup an average of 12 hours worth of staff hours a week per store,” Ms Pfeiffer-Smith said.

Dan Murphy’s is also exploring using AI to better understand how consumers react to promotions, as well as reviewing ranges for individual Dan Murphy’s stores which might need different liquor offers to better cater to local demographics and cultural mixes.

Originally published as Dan Murphy’s is using AI and shelf price technology to improve its business