BAT Launches Free Smart Retail Shelf With 3 Screens to Showcase VUSE and VELO

British American Tobacco recently introduced its latest smart retail shelving solution, the New Sustainable Gantry Solution, and invited retailers to visit a pilot store in Glasgow, UK. According to related reports, the smart shelf will be provided free of charge to retail customers participating in British American Tobacco’s retailer loyalty program, My BAT Rewards, and it complies with Scottish legislation. Available information shows that the smart shelf is designed to help retailers display British American Tobacco’s VUSE e-cigarettes and VELO nicotine pouches more effectively. The unit is equipped with three display screens to play promotional content related to Vuse and Velo. The screen content can be customized based on promotional campaigns and can even help consumers access information that previously had to be obtained at the checkout counter.

The smart shelf is made from 100% recycled plastic along with selected wood and metal, with all raw materials sourced within 50 kilometers of the Barcelona factory. At the same time, the unit is equipped with a Wi-Fi-enabled smart plug to help retailers understand its energy consumption and control costs. The smart shelf is movable, supports adjustable shelf height, and includes a central locking system to ensure product security. In an interview, Hashim Tahir, a B2B executive at BAT UK, said that amid the rapid growth of the e-cigarette market over the past few years, BAT UK identified a gap in the market and realized that retailers lacked the ability to merchandise and categorize products correctly in order to attract adult nicotine consumers into the category. BAT UK hopes to help retailers upgrade shelving that was previously geared toward traditional tobacco. BAT’s smart shelf offers a multi-category solution that can display e-cigarettes alongside alternative nicotine products, such as nicotine pouches, thereby saving space in the store’s tobacco area. Related reports said the solution has been well received by a number of retailers. Irfan Ahmad, a relevant executive at Day-Today, the first retailer to partner on the project, said that other companies they contacted could only offer traditional tobacco shelving and had not evolved with the market, whereas BAT’s new shelf offered something new by focusing on alternative nicotine products. BAT is not the first industry player to launch this type of shelving. In a previous article titled “A £558 Million Market! UK E-Cigarette Distributors Are Accelerating Their Shift Into Pod Systems,” GeWu Consumer noted that UK e-cigarette distributor Aquavape has long treated convenience stores as a core sales channel. Its shop-in-shop concept, which it began strongly promoting in 2020, uses shelving designed specifically for e-cigarettes and interactive screens to guide purchases. Convenience stores and supermarkets that sign a three-year exclusive partnership agreement with Aquavape can receive the equipment and installation services free of charge.

BAT’s latest move clearly shows that competition in the UK e-cigarette market is intensifying, channel influence is continuing to rise, and brands and manufacturers are having to increase investment to secure better shelf placement.