Why E-Ink isn't cheap yet? I see supermarkets using hundreds (maybe thousands) of panels with different sizes for displaying prices. I doubt they are paying 50$ for 7" display panel.
They were highly patent encumbered for a while. I think much of that is expired but the manufacturing base hasn’t caught up yet.
The pricing is pretty expensive even in bulk. $50 for the larger displays isn’t off by an order of magnitude (e.g. 7 inch with red) especially as a retailer is buying that as a larger solution which includes all the syncing hardware, maintenance programs, and integrations.
For retailers, the savings story is in increased pricing accuracy and reduced labor for price changes. There is the promise of dynamic pricing but that’s a minefield for various reasons.
That’s why you tend to see it in high-value retailers (pricing accuracy, precision, smaller tag count) and grocers (lots of price changes, high labor costs).
