A supermarket runs on printed paper that gets replaced every week. Shelf labels, offer tickets, danglers above the aisle, the A-board at the door, the chiller wrap by the grab-and-go fridge — none of it is permanent, and all of it has to be cheap enough to reprint on a promotion cycle. This guide gives Dubai grocery and supermarket operators the real 2026 prices (VAT inclusive), the right material for each position in the store, and the reorder rhythm that stops you paying express rates every Thursday.
Headline numbers: shelf and price labels start at AED 410 per 1,000 at 8 x 12 cm and drop to under 6 fils each at 50,000. Aisle danglers are AED 220 for four. A pavement A-board is AED 900. A full grab-and-go chiller sticker is AED 1,050.
1. Shelf labels and price tickets
This is the highest-volume print item in any grocery store and the one where unit cost decides your margin on promotion printing. Two sizes cover almost everything:
8 x 12 cm — the standard shelf-edge ticket. Fits a price, a unit price, a product name in two languages and a barcode. Unlaminated paper sticker: AED 410 per 1,000, AED 810 per 5,000, AED 1,310 per 10,000, AED 2,810 per 50,000. At the 50,000 band you are paying about 5.6 fils per ticket, which is the point at which it becomes cheaper to print a season's worth than to reorder monthly.
23 x 17 cm — the bigger offer ticket for end-caps, bulk bins and promotional gondolas. AED 600 per 1,000, AED 1,400 per 5,000, AED 2,500 per 10,000, AED 6,500 per 50,000.
Deliberately specify unlaminated for shelf tickets. Lamination adds cost and makes the sticker harder to peel off cleanly at the end of a promotion — a laminated ticket leaves adhesive residue on a chrome shelf rail that someone then has to scrape. Save lamination for anything that gets wet. Browse the full range in the stickers and labels collection.
For round promotional dots and "new" flashes applied directly to packaging, round paper stickers are the right format: 1,000 round 6 cm paper stickers at AED 625, or 10,000 at 5.5 cm for AED 950 — under 10 fils each.
2. Chiller, freezer and wet-area labels
Anything inside or on a refrigerated unit needs a different material. Paper stickers fail on chiller glass: condensation gets under the edge within a day and the label curls. Use PVC or transparent vinyl for these positions.
For a full visual treatment of a grab-and-go unit, a grab-and-go chiller sticker with full coverage including the back side is AED 1,050 per unit. That is the single highest-impact print item in a convenience-format store, because the chiller is where impulse margin lives — and a printed back panel means the graphic reads through the glass as the unit empties.
For window and glass-door work, one-way vision perforated film runs AED 110 per m² supply-only or AED 150 per m² with installation. It lets staff see out of a shopfront while carrying full-colour graphics outside — useful for the front glazing where you want promotion visibility without blacking out the store.
3. Aisle danglers and ceiling signage
Danglers do the job that shelf tickets cannot: they are visible from the end of an aisle. Two formats:
Four round danglers at 15 x 15 cm for AED 220 — the small format for category markers hung along a single aisle. And one round dangler at 60 x 60 cm for AED 210, which is the department-level sign you hang over fresh produce or bakery.
Practical rule: hang danglers at 2.2–2.4 m from the floor. Higher and they drop out of the shopper's natural sightline; lower and a staff member with a pallet jack takes one down within a week. Print both sides — a dangler seen from only one direction is doing half its job for the same money. Full options are in the signage collection, and the in-store formats are compared in our POS display printing guide.
4. Offer boards, posters and pavement signage
For the entrance and the promotion run:
- A4 posters, 15 for AED 140 — about AED 9.30 each. The weekly-offer workhorse: one per aisle head, swapped every Thursday.
- A1 sheets, 10 for AED 270 — AED 27 each. The entrance poster and the end-cap headline. A1 is the smallest size that reads from across a car park.
- Spring A-board, 80 x 115 cm: AED 900. The pavement sign. Spring-loaded base so it rights itself in wind rather than going over — worth the difference in Dubai's shamal season. Larger formats: 90 x 190 cm at AED 1,000, 110 x 260 cm at AED 1,110.
- Forex board cutout standee, AED 525 — for a product launch or supplier-funded display at the store entrance.
- Floor graphic stickers from AED 95 — anti-slip laminated floor vinyl for aisle direction and queue markers.
- Indoor wall signage, AED 395 — for department naming and permanent category boards.
Buy the A-board frame once and reprint only the insert. The frame is the expensive part; the printed panel inside it is not. The same applies to poster holders at aisle heads — a shop that buys frames pays for paper thereafter.
5. Real 2026 prices
All prices in AED, VAT inclusive, printing included. Delivery across Dubai and Sharjah included.
| Item | Specification | Quantity | Price (AED) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shelf labels | Paper 8 x 12 cm, unlaminated | 1,000 | 410 |
| Shelf labels | Paper 8 x 12 cm, unlaminated | 5,000 | 810 |
| Shelf labels | Paper 8 x 12 cm, unlaminated | 10,000 | 1,310 |
| Shelf labels | Paper 8 x 12 cm, unlaminated | 50,000 | 2,810 |
| Offer tickets | Paper 23 x 17 cm, unlaminated | 1,000 | 600 |
| Offer tickets | Paper 23 x 17 cm, unlaminated | 10,000 | 2,500 |
| Offer tickets | Paper 23 x 17 cm, unlaminated | 50,000 | 6,500 |
| Promo dots, round | Paper, 6 cm diameter | 1,000 | 625 |
| Promo dots, round | Paper, 5.5 cm diameter | 10,000 | 950 |
| Chiller sticker | Grab-and-go, full coverage incl. back side | 1 unit | 1,050 |
| One-way vision film | Perforated window graphic, supply only | Per m² | 110 |
| One-way vision film | Perforated, supply + installation | Per m² | 150 |
| Frosted film | Glass privacy, supply only | Per m² | 30 |
| Aisle danglers | Round 15 x 15 cm | 4 | 220 |
| Department dangler | Round 60 x 60 cm | 1 | 210 |
| Offer posters | A4, single-side | 15 | 140 |
| Entrance posters | A1, 4-colour, 1 side | 10 | 270 |
| Spring A-board | 80 x 115 cm | 1 | 900 |
| Spring A-board | 90 x 190 cm | 1 | 1,000 |
| Spring A-board | 110 x 260 cm | 1 | 1,110 |
| Cutout standee | Forex board | 1 | 525 |
| Floor graphics | Anti-slip laminated vinyl | From | 95 |
| Indoor wall signage | Department / category boards | From | 395 |
Prices confirmed against the store. Quantity bands are real step changes, so a 1,200-label requirement is almost always cheaper taken at the 5,000 band than ordered twice.
6. How to order on a promotion cycle
The difference between a store that pays standard rates and one that pays express rates is planning two weeks instead of two days.
- Build one template set, not one artwork per promotion. Lock down a shelf-ticket template, an A4 offer template and a dangler template with your brand colours and bilingual field positions fixed. Each week you change only the product, price and image.
- Batch the cycle. Send all of a month's promotion artwork in one order. You get one setup instead of four and you hit a higher quantity band on labels.
- Supply print-ready PDFs — CMYK, 3 mm bleed, 300 DPI, fonts outlined. Prices and Arabic product names must be live text in the source file, outlined at export; a price typed over an image cannot be corrected at proof stage without a redraw.
- Check the Arabic. Arabic product names should be proofread by someone who reads Arabic, not approved on shape. The most common error we see on grocery tickets is a broken ligature where text was pasted from a spreadsheet.
- Production: 2–3 working days for labels, posters and danglers from proof approval. 4–5 working days for A-boards, chiller stickers and installed window film. Same-week turnaround is possible on labels and posters — say so before you approve.
FAQ
What size should a supermarket shelf label be?
8 x 12 cm is the standard shelf-edge ticket and fits a price, unit price, bilingual product name and barcode legibly. Use 23 x 17 cm for end-caps, bulk bins and promotional gondolas where the ticket has to read from two or three metres away.
Should shelf labels be laminated?
No, for two reasons: it adds cost on your highest-volume item, and a laminated sticker is harder to remove cleanly from a shelf rail at the end of a promotion. Use lamination or PVC only where moisture is present — chillers, freezers, the fresh produce misting area and anything near a wash-down.
Can you print bilingual Arabic and English price tickets?
Yes, and for a Dubai grocery store you should. Put the Arabic product name above or to the right of the English at equal weight — not in smaller type underneath. Send Arabic text in the source file rather than as an image so it can be corrected at proof.
How often should offer boards be reprinted?
Weekly for A4 aisle-head posters, monthly for A1 entrance posters, quarterly for danglers unless the category changes. The practical limit is not the paper — it is staff time to swap them. Most stores overprint danglers and underprint A4 posters.
What is the cheapest way to print promotion labels at volume?
Order at a higher quantity band and store the stock. Moving from 1,000 to 50,000 on 8 x 12 cm labels takes the unit cost from 41 fils to 5.6 fils — a seven-fold reduction. If your promotion mechanic (percentage-off, buy-one-get-one, multi-buy) is stable and only the price changes, print the mechanic in bulk and overprint or hand-write the price.
Do you install window film and chiller stickers?
Yes. One-way vision film is AED 110 per m² supply-only or AED 150 per m² installed. Installation is worth paying for on anything over about 2 m² — a bubbled or misaligned shopfront graphic is more damaging than no graphic.
Ready to order
Send us your current shelf ticket and offer poster and we will rebuild them as reusable templates, then quote the whole promotion cycle in one go.
WhatsApp +971 52 210 0909 or call 052 210 0909. Browse the stickers and labels collection and the signage range.
