Electronic shelf labels in Germany: who uses them and what the press says

Germany is one of the European markets where electronic shelf labels have been in use longest, yet almost everything we know comes from press reports and vendor announcements, not audited figures. Kaufland says it has largely completed the switch across its 770 stores; Edeka leaves it to each store owner; dm and OBI are in the middle of their rollouts.

This page collects what those sources say, with their dates, and flags what I could not confirm. It is the German companion to the tracker of rollouts in Spain; for the underlying technology, see what an electronic shelf label is.

Summary by retailer

Kaufland: from vegetables to the whole store

Kaufland started by trialling the technology in individual stores in Baden-Württemberg, according to Stiftung Warentest in 2015. Ten years later the press describes a different scale. According to mobiFlip (12 May 2025), the labels now cover every bakery counter in the German stores, after fruit and vegetables, with around 100,000 new labels installed in that step. t-online (16 May 2025) adds the sentence most often quoted: the switch is largely complete, and only a few of the 770 stores still need final adjustments.

Two caveats are worth keeping in mind. First, neither piece says how many stores have which type of label, so “largely” cannot be turned into a percentage. Second, neither names the manufacturer. Other trade outlets mention specific suppliers, but not in the sources I have read, so I do not state it.

The same mobiFlip text says that by the end of July 2025 the technology would reach Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Moldova, with more than 170,000 labels in over 1,550 stores. That is a plan, not a result.

The quote on prices

Kaufland says: “Im Sinne unserer Kunden nutzen wir die Preisschilder tagsüber nur für Preissenkungen”, meaning that during the day it uses the labels only to lower prices. This is a company statement; I have found no independent study that tests it. For what is and is not allowed when it comes to price changes, see the guide to dynamic pricing.

Why a large chain welcomes them

In August 2020, when Germany temporarily cut VAT, a Kaufland spokesperson told echo24 that it meant “immense effort and immense costs”: around 30,000 items per store on average, across roughly 670 stores, had to be relabelled. A mass change on a fixed date is the clearest argument for automating labelling, although the quote does not say what it would have cost with electronic labels across the whole range.

Edeka and Rewe: two cooperatives, two stories

The headline “Kaufland and Edeka” is misleading here, because the two are not comparable. Kaufland is a single company deciding for all its stores. Edeka and Rewe bring together independent retailers alongside company-owned stores, and the decision to buy labels is, to a large extent, taken by each owner.

Rewe. Stiftung Warentest reported in 2015 that Rewe had been fitting new and refurbished stores since November 2013, with about 500 stores using labels and roughly 15,000 labels per average store. Rewe said at the time that the aim was to relieve staff, not to change prices every hour. The Lebensmittel Zeitung (1 September 2022, a paywalled article of which I have seen only the teaser) adds that Rewe was introducing a second generation in phases and that Lidl had completed its fruit and vegetable rollout across Germany.

Edeka. The case with figures is a Vusion reference: more than 100 stores with over 20,000 labels each, out of roughly 4,100 stores in the group. It says the rollout was later extended across the estate but gives no number for that, and it does not date the rollout beyond trials that began in 2013. From a retailer’s side, an Edeka operator in the Heilbronn region (Ueltzhöfer) told echo24 in 2020 that the labels “make the work much easier”. That is a testimonial, not a statistic about the group.

What I did not find: any dated 2024 or 2025 figure for how many Edeka or Rewe stores have them today. If someone cites one, ask for the source.

Media-Saturn: the oldest rollout and the least up to date

Computerwoche reported on 6 October 2015 that Media-Saturn was replacing paper in around 430 stores in Germany. Netzwoche published on 24 February 2017 that the integrator Xplace had completed a two-year project with more than 10 million labels in over 1,000 European stores, using SES-imagotag hardware with LCD and e-paper displays. The 2015 store count (Germany only) and the 2017 one (Europe) cannot be compared with each other.

For the consumer electronics format, see the electronics sector. There is no recent source confirming the current situation in the stores.

dm: the label becomes a shelf rail

According to CIO.de (10 November 2025), dm is working with VusionGroup on Edge Sense, a rail mounted on the front edge of the shelf, with LED labels and a Bluetooth LE network behind it. The first phase covers 70 stores, 20 of which already use it; the rest are being prepared. Staff look up product and stock data on mobile devices and can change prices at the shelf, for example for promotions.

Two things set this case apart. First, CIO is not describing an “ESL” in the classic e-paper sense, but a system with sensors and AI functions. Second, how far it will extend remains open. I tried to find dm’s original press release (which the press places at the end of October 2025), but its server returned a 403 error and I could not read it, so I rely solely on the CIO interview.

OBI: DIY, Cisco and 200 stores

VusionGroup announced on 26 November 2025 that OBI was deploying labels and its platform in more than 200 stores in Germany, making use of the Cisco Meraki network already in place. CIO.de, which interviews an OBI executive, speaks of 350 stores in Germany and more than 600 in Europe, with the first phase at 200, and of two goals: automating price changes at the shelf and freeing staff time for customers. It does not quantify savings. The analysis of the format is in DIY and hardware.

What German consumers ask for

The Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg (2 March 2017) ran a sample check in the city. It does not publish a sample size, but concludes that digital labels can fail just like paper ones: differences between shelf and till, and unit prices that are missing or unreadable. It also warns that the same technology allows prices to be raised with one click. That warning is almost ten years old; today the framework includes the obligation under section 11 PAngV to show the lowest price of the previous 30 days when advertising a reduction (legal text, in German, with exceptions for clearly marked perishables). The full explanation is in the 30-day rule, and if shelf and till disagree, see what happens with the till price.

What follows from all this

• There are three rollout models. An integrated chain (Kaufland), a cooperative of independents (Edeka, Rewe) and a specialist chain with an integrator (Media-Saturn, OBI).
• The suppliers behind the German references are mostly Vusion/SES-imagotag, although this is not on record for Kaufland. To compare manufacturers, the vendor comparison sorts out what is known.
• Recent information is scarce. For Edeka, Rewe and Media-Saturn the latest citable data are from 2015 to 2022. Those for Kaufland, dm and OBI are from 2025.