Selb, Germany, October 30, 2026 / PRNewswire / -- With the acceleration of digital transformation in the European retail industry, electronic shelf labels ( ESL ) are increasingly becoming an important part of retailers' digital strategies, helping to improve store operational efficiency.

The new store of hagebaumarkt located in Selb, Germany, officially opened after about four months of renovation.

hagebau was established in 1964 and is one of Germany's leading retail groups for home improvement and building materials, with a solid presence across Europe. Its hagebaumarkt store network covers core retail categories such as DIY, home improvement, building materials, and gardening.

Improve employee efficiency and store operations

The Serb store covers an area of about 7,000 square meters and offers a rich variety of products across multiple categories. The complexity of store operations lies not only in the size of the space but also in the breadth and diversity of the product catalog, which makes manual price verification and label maintenance particularly cumbersome.

Therefore, ESL technology was incorporated from the very beginning of the renovation plan, enabling faster price updates and ensuring that the information across the entire store is more accurate.

Designed for the complexity of home building materials retail

Different from traditional supermarkets, the management of products in home building materials stores is more complex:

• Complex product information:Building materials, hardware, and tools typically contain multiple attributes, such as model, size, material, color, compatibility, and purpose. These details are crucial for purchasing decisions.
• Diverse display environments:Products may be displayed on shelves, hooks, standalone booths, outdoor areas, or in warehouse-style display zones, therefore electronic shelf labels ( ESL ) of different sizes and installation methods are required.
• Higher intensity of manual management:Although the frequency of price changes may be lower than that in food retail, identifying products and replacing them with the correct labels among a wide variety of goods remains a time-consuming task.

To accommodate the wide variety of products and display formats in stores, ZKONG has deployed a range of ESL units with sizes ranging from 1.3 inches to 4.2 inches. Thanks to this flexibility in size combinations, ESL can seamlessly adapt to various display methods in stores, contributing to maintaining the clean and orderly presentation commonly seen in modern German retail environments.

In addition to the tags themselves, this project is also supported by the ZKONG base station, which provides stable wireless transmission and supports real-time updates of product, price, and promotional information on the shelves' edge screens. This helps to ensure that the information in the stores is consistent with the system data.

Driving smarter retail operations

ESL is reshaping the way retail stores operate. By deploying these digital shelf edge devices, retailers can improve store operational efficiency and free up employees from time-consuming tasks such as checking shelves and replacing labels, allowing them to devote more time and energy to serving customers.

Leveraging its solid presence in Europe, ZKONG continues to strengthen its capabilities in ESL hardware, wireless infrastructure, and centralized management systems in order to provide customized solutions for complex retail environments. The Selb project marks another step in ZKONG's expansion in the European home improvement and building materials retail sector. Through such projects, ZKONG continues to explore new opportunities to meet the evolving digital needs of the European retail industry.