Herbert Retail is a 260-year-old company with a proud history of working with retailers – including Sainsbury’s since the 1900s. The firm began as a seller of weighing scales for retailers, but it has evolved to become a technology integrator that adds value to manufacturer solutions through technical consultancy, middleware, and design work to make those solutions suitable for deployment in retail environments. The solutions it provides have included scanners, electronic labelling, and checkout-free solutions.
“What sets us apart is that we are a medium-sized company that combines the best of both worlds. We have the openness and straightforwardness of a smaller company, but we also have the capacity to do large nationwide deployments,” explains Managing Director, Claire Herbert. “We have a team of 50 engineers who have headed up several nationwide deployments in supermarkets across the years.”
Herbert Retail’s position as a technology integrator means it can be flexible in a way a manufacturer cannot. It listens to its customers and asks what problem they are looking to solve, rather than providing an off-the-shelf solution and trying to sell it regardless.
“We are pragmatic and flexible in our approach. We listen to problems and add value to the solutions,” Herbert says.
More Than an Off-the-Shelf Solution
This approach is visible in Herbert Retail’s deployment of the new electronic shelf labels solution. The company was behind the UK’s first estate-wide rollout of the solution, which it deployed for Scotmid Co-op.
“We installed them across the entire estate between October 2021 and October 2022,” Herbert tells us. “Nobody else has done that and it is an exciting time to be in the market.”
The electronic shelf labels replace the paper tickets on shelves with an electronic readout.
These readouts are connected to the point-of-sale system. It means that price changes no longer result in hours of labour and printing costs.
It also facilitates automatic price compliance between the ticket and point-of-sale. Price promotions start on time and stop on time, rather than relying on staff to adhere to them.
“You can do it all at the push of a button, and it goes through in a couple of hours all in one go,” Herbert explains. “For a Retailer, I believe the knowledge that you can change prices across your estate in a matter of minutes, is operationally and promotionally extremely powerful”.
As with Herbert Retail’s other rollouts, what stands their labelling solution apart is the value Herbert can add to the system.
“The electronic shelf label system did not have a way to validate prices across the estate. So, we built some middleware that does this – adding value to the manufacturer’s solution,” Herbert says.
Ambitious rollouts like this will always come with obstacles along the way, which is where Herbert Retail’s straightforward and transparent approach comes into its own.
“We have led a lot of large projects and in projects of that scale inevitably things will go wrong, but when they do go wrong, we won’t run away. We stick with the project and find a solution,” Herbert says.
Part of Something Bigger
With 260 years of history behind it, Herbert Retail has a proud heritage, but Herbert herself is forward-looking in her approach to the business.
“On a day-to-day basis it doesn’t make that much difference,” she says. “It is about what you are doing in the future rather than the past.”
That said, being such a longstanding brand still affects the culture and identity of the company. “It makes a difference to employees,” Herbert points out. “During job interviews, people will mention it.”
Herbert also admits that the company’s history affects her personally. “It certainly puts some pressure on me as a sixth-generation family member running the business!” she admits.
That pressure is at its most evident when the company is navigating the challenges of a market that has evolved a great deal over the last two-and-a-half centuries.
“A major challenge over the last few years has been the changing work our installation and service engineers do,” Herbert tells us. “Traditionally the business was orientated towards weights and scales, but as we have diversified that range of work has broadened. That means we have had to do a lot of communication and retraining as the scale sector has shrunk. Now our engineers are swapping batteries in PDAs and configuring mobile devices on-site. It is about broadening our offering.”
That diversification has also created new roles. As products become more advanced Herbert Retail has opened up remote support roles, shifting the company’s focus. Fortunately, the company’s location on the Cambridge and Suffolk border means it is close to one of the biggest innovation and technical hubs in the country.
“A lot of our staff have been here a very long time. A lot of our people are local to Haverhill, although we hire engineers nationwide,” says Herbert. “In a company of our size, the career path is not always formally set, but we can spot people who are willing, capable and want to progress.”
Herbert points to a member of staff on the support desk who had a marketing degree and was moved into the firm’s marketing department, as well as staff moving from the production department to the technical department, and from the support desk to finance and purchasing.
“We will support them in getting the qualifications they need,” Herbert says. “We offer people a career path that’s a bit more bespoke for people who want to progress.”
As well as a tailored career path, Herbert also points to the company’s culture as part of its appeal.
“We’re open and honest and have a flat hierarchy,” Herbert says. “I and the rest of the management team are as honest as we can be with our team about what is working and what needs improvement. Our managers regularly demonstrate a commitment to making the company more successful and that encourages staff to do the same thing.”
Looking forward, Herbert is clearly excited about the potential of the electronic shelf labels market, the Retail’s biggest growth area in terms of products.
“We have seen a big take-off in grocery retail, but we expect to see that move into the DIY sector, healthcare retail, and elsewhere,” Herbert says. “We are making the most of the quality of service and installation we are known for.”
