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NTU Management Review Vol. 34 No. 3 Dec. 2024

current supply chain, warehouse operations, and shipping processes. Retailers need to
have efficient and flexible retail operations, since connecting the online with the offline
increases complexity and creates pressure on supply chain functions. ESL drives digital
transformation by enlarging the retail ecosystem, attracting other actors to be involved,

and unlocking a potential omnichannel strategy. However, this raises another question:
How can ESL help restructure and reshape existing supply chain functions? It remains a
new challenge for ESL innovations at this stage.

4.2.2 Information Density
In the first stage, ESL triggers the dematerialization of price and product information,
converting them into a digital format and making the information free to flow. Retailers
adopt a dynamic pricing strategy to maximize the benefits of digital forms of price

information by considering product availability and expiration dates. This strategy can
help retailers balance demand and supply and offer competitive prices to customers.
However, to get product availability and expiration dates, retailers should be able to

unbundle availability and expiration dates from the existing supply chain network, change
them into a digital format, and share them through collaboration with existing supply
chain networks. Information sharing through APIs can help fulfill the demand for specific
information.
Moreover, the digitization of product information can also connect online and

physical environments, facilitating the implementation of an omnichannel strategy that can
abandon the distinction between the physical and digital worlds. Retailers should be able to
unbundle some information from different actors to implement the omnichannel strategy.

Information from supply chain networks should be able to drive the implementation of an
omnichannel strategy.
Once the unbundling of the information from different enterprises has been confirmed,
retailers should be able to rebundle the information. For instance, the dynamic price can be
seen as a new direction for retailers to rebundle price information with product availability

and expiration date, create new information density by manipulating it, and display it to
customers in real time through ESL or online platforms. Retailers can also rebundle the
product information with additional data to provide a more engaging customer experience.

For instance, by rebundling product information with recipes, retailers can help customers

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