Credibility is everything in the retail industry. One wrong price tag can undo years of trust, and under new EU pricing rules, it can also bring legal consequences.
Recently, Irish retailers including Boots, Lifestyle Sports, DID Electrical, Rathwood Garden Centre and Homesavers have appeared before the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) for alleged breaches of Article 6a of the EU Price Reduction Directive, implemented in Ireland as S.I. No. 597/2022.
The regulation requires that any advertised discount must display the lowest price charged in the previous 30 days. Designed to prevent misleading “was/now” discounts, it has also raised the bar for transparency. For retailers, compliance now means more than avoiding fines, it’s about proving honesty and protecting brand credibility.
The true cost of pricing mistakes
CCPC fines are often modest, but the fallout from even one pricing error can be severe: costly legal fees, staff time lost to investigations, and, most damaging, customer distrust.
According to CCPC research, 70 percent of Irish consumers distrust promotional discounts. Every mismatch between shelf and till prices reinforces that doubt. Over time, inconsistencies don’t just cause operational issues, they erode the reputation your brand depends on.
Why synchronisation defines credibility
Customers expect that what they see on the shelf is what they’ll pay at checkout. When a price is out of date or misapplied, they don’t think “system glitch”, they think “misleading”.
For chains managing thousands of SKUs across stores and online platforms, perfect synchronisation is hard to achieve manually. Promotions vary by region and timing, product lines change constantly, and staff are stretched thin. Under Article 6a, even one outdated promotional tag can mean non-compliance.
Accuracy has become the marker of retailers’ integrity.
When old processes fail new expectations
Printing paper labels worked when price changes were infrequent. Today, promotions overlap, supplier prices shift weekly, and regulators expect timestamped audit trails for every change.
Manual systems often leave room for errors that don’t comply with modern retail demands:
- Labels are easily missed or delayed.
- Prices diverge across POS and online channels.
- There’s no central record of when updates occurred.
These gaps erode trust, waste time, and heighten compliance risks. Paper-based processes simply can’t keep pace with the speed and transparency, and accountability expected of retailers today.
Digital pricing that builds trust
Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) replace printed tags with connected digital displays that update automatically whenever prices change. They ensure that shelf, POS, and online prices always match – in seconds, not hours – removing human error and uncertainty.
Combined with a powerful POS and retail management software like LS Central, ESLs become more than a time-saving tool. LS Central’s pricing and discount engine calculates and applies all price and promotion rules, base prices, mix & match offers, and multibuys, across every channel, then pushes those updates to ESLs automatically.
For customers, that means consistency. For retailers, it means full traceability and confidence that every price displayed is the correct one.
LS Central: compliance that earns credibility
With LS Central, all prices flow from a single, centralised source. Each update is applied once, across shelves, tills, and e-commerce, and automatically timestamped, creating a complete audit trail.
Through its web-service integration with ESL provider Pricer, LS Central delivers real-time price updates to every shelf label. Partners such as Vue, SESimagotag, and Solum are also working with LS Retail’s ecosystem to build compatible integrations, ensuring flexibility for retailers without compromising control.
This level of automation streamlines compliance while reinforcing accountability. When customers know your prices are accurate and transparent, they put more trust in your brand.
Precision and trust in motion: Color Line’s story
Color Line, Norway’s leading cruise and ferry operator, shows how accuracy and credibility go hand in hand. The company uses LS Central to manage retail and duty-free operations onboard its ships, together with ESLs that update prices automatically based on each vessel’s geographical location and tax zone.
As ships cross borders and currencies, shelf labels adjust instantly, ensuring passengers always see the correct, compliant price.
Here’s where it makes a difference:
- Real-time consistency across tax zones and markets.
- Staff freed from manual price changes.
- Stronger customer trust in a complex, cross-border environment.
Color Line’s approach turns pricing precision into a visible expression of reliability, proof that compliance and customer confidence can sail together.
Compliance as a competitive advantage
Retailers often see regulation as a burden. But in a market where customers doubt discounts, transparency is actually a brand asset.
By automating price management with LS Central and ESLs, you’re not just meeting legal standards, you’re showing customers your commitment to fairness. Each accurate label becomes a quiet statement of honesty. Each synchronised price reinforces credibility.
Compliance now extends beyond avoiding penalties, serving as tangible proof that earns customer loyalty.
Your action plan for transparent pricing
- Map your pricing process. Identify where manual steps create risk or delay.
- Assess your readiness. If you use LS Central, explore ESL integrations and store infrastructure (Wi-Fi and label power).
- Run a pilot. Test in one department or location; measure time saved, and accuracy improved.
- Make trust visible. Share your commitment to accurate, transparent pricing, it strengthens your reputation as much as your compliance.
Protect what matters most: your reputation
Non-compliance isn’t just about fines, it’s about risking what matters most: your credibility with customers. Electronic Shelf Labels powered by LS Central give you the visibility, precision, and proof your customers, and regulators, expect.
Because in today’s retail, compliance goes beyond rules to protect and build your reputation.
Talk to our retail experts to learn how LS Central can help your business automate pricing, ensure transparency, and turn compliance into a true competitive advantage.
