2nd of June, Dusseldorf. The third day of EuroCIS 2022 is as busy as ever. A big group of visitors around Hanshow’s display features both newcomers to retail technology sector and the experienced players in close ties with the company. We have asked one of them, Vernon Naik, a director of the South African company Pricewizard (Electronic Shelf Labeling Systems) to share his experience of collaborating with Hanshow.

We have been in the retail industry for almost 40 years now, primarily in the point of sales in business. Based in Pietermaritzburg, we also have a development office in Durban. Our clients are predominantly from South Africa, but we also have clients all across the region. This helps us a lot in our business model.

We are proud to market Hanshow’s products in our country.

We market various POS systems, and we are responsible for our own software development. Having our own software company is very beneficial for us because we can interface with any program, as we have many other clients willing to integrate with the Hanshow system.

The cooperation with Hanshow started maybe 8 to 10 years ago. As a POS system vendor, some of our clients asked us to source Electronic Shelf Labelling systems for their system integration. Initially, we partnered with a local vendor with too long installation procedures and too high maintenance, so we decided to find our own ESL vendor abroad.

During my visit to China, I visited three companies before Hanshow. And whilst the support provided by those companies has not been sufficient for us, at Hanshow we had a completely different scenario.

Hanshow became that reliable ESL vendor we were looking for.

Traveling to Beijing, I met Folkwin, who introduced me to Hanshow's products and convinced us to stay with Hanshow. We are very grateful for that because once the Stellar range came into play, it was a whole new ball game. Since then, Hanshow has grown drastically and we are extremely excited , but not totally surprised when we see all the innovative products here today.

Hanshow has its own back office to communicate with the ESL’s, but they were kind enough to give us access to their API. This enabled us to develop our own interface software for the South African market. This made the system easy for our clients to use and with Hanshows tech support installations became simpler and quicker.

Although South Africa is a very difficult market, people want technology.

I see African retailers investing in retail technologies in a year or so; there is no getting away from the fact that everything all over the world is getting more expensive. I am sure our clients understand that there is no magic wand that would cut the price.

We mostly market the Stellar range, with a few clients using Nebular in South Africa and in Africa generally.

At the moment, we were just focusing more on the Electronic Shelf Labels for pricing and displaying information, but we have numerous inquiries about the geolocation and warehousing functions as well. After visiting EuroCIS and seeing what Hanshow has to offer, I have much more information to assist our clients better.

The most important thing that I learned was an incredible support and the service from Hanshow.

We were one of the few countries that developed our interface to the actual software, and the support we have received from Hanshow's technical and sales team was incredible. I would highly recommend Hanshow and invite everyone to look at the innovations that they have. I don't know much about the other companies now, and I don't really want to know, because we have everything that we need to have in a company like Hanshow.

About Pricewizard:

Pricewizard is one of the major suppliers of electronic shelf labels in the African market. It represents China’s leading electronic shelf labelling manufacturers – Hanshow. Spending the last few years on development and integration for the local market to enable the ESL system to interface with any existing Point of Sale system, Pricewizard plans to meet the digital retail technological requirements of the fast-growing South African market.

About Hanshow:

Hanshow is a global leader in developing and manufacturing electronic shelf labels and digital store solutions. As an innovation leader in the industry, Hanshow is dedicated to offering its global customers a series of world-class customized IoT touchpoints and digital store solutions. Hanshow’s intelligence-enabled platforms and systems deliver customer-centric insights, helping retailers streamline operations and providing various solutions to support optimal pricing strategies to offer consumers a more personalized experience. Hanshow currently serves over 20,000 stores in more than 50 countries.