Digitization of the Price Labeling Process: A Balancing Act Between Automation and Customization at Möbel Pfister

Digitization is fundamentally changing product communication. Möbel Pfister, a leading Swiss furniture store, is harmonizing automation and customization with its digitized price labeling project. However, the journey has not been without challenges and has provided important lessons for future IT projects.

The price labeling process at Möbel Pfister

Möbel Pfister operates 18 stores throughout Switzerland and employs more than 1,400 people. The business creates its product communication in three languages: German, French and Italian. In addition to the local stores, the company's own web shop also plays a central role. In stores, price posters are a central component of customer communication. They are used to display important product information, such as product availability, prices and brand logos. These posters, which are designed in various layouts and formats, are an indispensable medium for providing product information in an appealing way and are essential for customer communication. They are printed in different layouts and formats depending on the use case.

Prior to the start of this project, the marketing department at Möbel Pfister successfully utilized the priint:suite to create brochures and catalogs. This established solution demonstrated how efficiently data from various sources can be used for the automated creation of communication materials. This led to the idea of extending this potential to the creation of price posters, thereby optimizing processes in the stores.

Price posters in the branch store

Initial situation and objectives

The goal of the project was to digitize and automate the time-consuming and error-prone manual process of creating price posters. Previously, these posters were created using Word templates based on Excel spreadsheets, which placed a very heavy workload on store operations. The priint:suite, which was already successfully in use, provided an ideal basis for replacing old processes and making them more efficient. The vision was to use the priint:suite to provide store employees with a centralized, user-friendly system that would allow them to independently generate price posters with minimal effort. This was to be implemented by using defined InDesign templates.

Hurdles between innovation and acceptance

Despite the promising initial situation, numerous challenges arose during the project’s implementation, both technical and organizational.

The core problem resulted from a lack of employee acceptance. Many felt they had not been sufficiently trained, as the introduction of the priint:suite was only accompanied by virtual training.

Technical problems further complicated the transition because Möbel Pfister had to overcome various hurdles with the PIM system SAP Hybris. This is because the interface from the PIM to the priint:suite was only used sporadically until the project started. However, in order to be able to handle the daily accesses, major releases were necessary, which in turn destroyed the interface. This led to massive problems and a massive rejection by users. True to the motto “Shit in – Shit out”, posters were printed with incorrect price information or no price information at all.

Another problem was the InDesign server, which was overloaded when a large number of users were using it to work on the same documents at the same time. The users blocked each other, the InDesign server stopped working, and this resulted in empty templates.

In addition to technical hurdles, the unclear distribution of responsibilities also posed a significant challenge. Supervisors left the implementation of the new processes to the employees. Gaps arose and some teams, due to a lack of acceptance, reverted to old methods because the automation required a change in thinking that employees were not willing to support.

Turning point: How Möbel Pfister overcame the challenges

A comprehensive action plan was developed to resolve the technical issues and regain acceptance of the new processes. The interfaces between the priint:suite and the PIM system were stabilized to ensure reliable data transfer. The InDesign server was optimized to support a higher number of concurrent users. These measures alone resulted in a 70% reduction in the time needed to generate PDFs.

Additionally, new training formats were introduced to better prepare employees to use the system. Classroom training and detailed instructions helped to deepen knowledge and increase acceptance. Sales management became more involved, took an active role and helped clarify responsibilities. In addition, communication of the system's advantages was intensified, in particular the higher data quality and error prevention, to demonstrate to employees the various advantages of automated price poster creation. Regular visits and direct on-site support further strengthened this trust.

From one success to the next: ImportApp puts price poster creation in the fast lane

After the first successes, automation was taken to the next level with the introduction of the ImportApp. This app enables the ERP system to automatically generate article lists that can be assigned to the corresponding templates. These data are structured as .csv  files by product group, promotion and price change and transmitted to the priint:suite. Then, the priint:suite processes these files and generates over 15,000 price posters overnight for the desired campaigns. The PDFs are sorted by store, product group, promotion and price change and stored in a defined location, from where sales staff can simply print and display them. This automated process has significantly increased efficiency and enables error-free, fast and accurate creation of price posters.

ImportApp of the priint:suite

Price posters on autopilot: Möbel Pfister relies on the priint:suite

The priint:suite has established itself as a key technology at Möbel Pfister. It is used by over 240 users in sales, purchasing and marketing to efficiently create price posters, labels, brochures and catalogs. A clear assignment of responsibilities and continuous support are crucial to promoting acceptance. The project has shown that automation not only brings technical challenges, but also human ones.