Walmart expands light-up digital shelf labels and app tools for shoppers, workers

The three new features are Shop to Light for shoppers and Pick to Light and Stock to Light for store associates. Shop to Light allows customers to find a specific product on the Walmart app, navigate to the correct aisle and then flash the digital shelf label of the product to locate it. Pick to Light and Stock to Light use the same capabilities to help associates pick items for digital orders and stock products. Walmart is now incorporating Shop to Light widely after a pilot program. Greg Cathey, Walmart’s senior vice president of digital transformation, said all three features will be rolled out to stores companywide by the holiday season.

“We are people-led, tech-powered,” Cathey said. “But the way we look at it is AI as a way to help associates do their job and free up time to allow them to invest in what they love to do most, which is spend more time with customers and their fellow associates.”

Cathey said the features are a use case customers and associates have requested and give them time back. Shop to Light has already seen 5 million flashes from customers since it began rolling out to limited locations this summer, he said. Walmart stores carry roughly 120,000 items, and Cathey said it is a priority to provide that large range while making it easier for customers to locate precise items. The company does not publicly share financial aspects of the program, but Cathey said the pilot features allow associates and customers to have more time while shopping and stocking. He called the new features especially important as the retailer enters the busy holiday season and said the company views them as “a big win” for time savings.

Walmart began using digital shelf labels instead of paper labels to allow automatic, systemwide price changes to be rolled out at once. The company currently has more than 4,300 stores with digital shelf labels and expects them to be installed across the chain by the end of the year, according to Walmart. Cathey said about 90% of sections within stores have digital shelf labels. Prices are changed overnight, when customers are not in the store, and the system has human oversight to ensure it has “robust governance” and does not make mistakes, he said. “We don’t look at it as technology for technology’s sake,” Cathey said. “So we always have a human in the loop, and we’re very focused on human judgment and their ability to make decisions.”

The rollout comes as convenience and speed, particularly in delivery and pickup, have become critical to Walmart’s efforts to increase sales, CNBC reported. Walmart’s business has grown steadily and its e-commerce sales continue to soar, but investor concerns about comparable sales and revenue outlook weighed on its stock after its most recent earnings report in August. Walmart has been investing in technology to modernize its consumer-facing and internal operations. It has rolled out an AI agent to help customers with shopping, automated its supply chain, invested in radio frequency identification tags and set the stage for agentic commerce as it embraces AI. It has also spent billions on modernizing its store locations.

On Walmart’s most recent earnings call, CEO John Furner said the company is seeing significant returns on its technology strategies, including its investments in AI. “We believe AI will improve nearly every part of our business by making shopping better, and our associates’ work easier,” he said.

Still, digital shelf labels and the company’s AI push have sparked backlash, raising concerns about dynamic pricing and fears that digital labels could lead to price surges or privacy issues with collecting shopping data from customers. In an open letter last week, Furner said the company is continuing to “price the product, not the person” and does not plan to use customer information to set prices. “Your income, shopping history, urgency or what we think you could pay won’t change the price,” Furner wrote. Several state legislatures, including New Jersey, have passed measures to restrict digital shelf labels, according to the report. Cathey, who has been in his position for nearly a year, said his biggest priority when taking over the role was to focus on accelerating the speed of the technology Walmart uses while keeping human oversight.

Editor’s Summary

Walmart is expanding digital shelf label tools that let shoppers and employees locate products faster, with a companywide rollout planned by the holiday season. The retailer says the features save time and support its broader technology and AI investments, while it faces scrutiny over dynamic pricing and privacy. Walmart has said it will not use customer information to set prices.