Apparatus and method for applying price changes in an electronic pricing system

摘要

A system (10) and method of applying price changes which minimizes price look-up file access attempts by using a separate file (34) for daily price change information, including a new price, a date, a start time, and an end time. The system includes an electronic price label (22) associated with each item and a computer (24) for reading a record for an item in a price file (44), for obtaining daily price change information for the item from the record, for adding the daily price change information to another file (34) different from the price file, and for processing the daily price change information in the other file (34) by reading the daily price change information from the other file, sending a first message to the electronic price label (22) at the start time including a command to display the new price, and sending a second message to the electronic price label at the end time including a command to display a regular price for the item from the price file. IMAGE