Patent 10130177 was granted and assigned to Walmart on November, 2018 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In some embodiments, apparatuses and methods are provided herein useful to provide a visual indication of a weight of products stocked on a display assembly, such as a shelf of a shelving unit. The visual indication is provided by virtue of the display assembly having a product support member with a curved configuration that sequentially flattens as additional weight is added thereto. A laser device can be mounted proximate to the assembly and oriented to determine a distance to the product support member and a control circuit can be configured to receive the distance and analyze the distance to determine a deflection of the product support member to determine a current stock level.