The invention provides an operating method for an electronic shelf label system. The electronic shelf label system comprises a main control system and an electronic shelf label system component, wherein the electronic shelf label system component comprises a subcontrol module and a plurality of electronic shelf labels; and each electronic shelf label is provided with a display module. The operating method comprises the following steps that: connecting the electronic shelf labels with the subcontrol module to enable the display modules of the electronic shelf labels to display the network addresses of the electronic shelf labels; scanning the network addresses of the electronic shelf labels and the commodity code of a commodity, and sending the network addresses of the electronic shelf labels and the commodity code of the commodity to the main control system; and establishing an association relationship between the network addresses of the electronic shelf labels and the corresponding commodity code by the main control system. By use of the operating method for the electronic shelf label system, the subcontrol module and the main control system are wirelessly connected, each electronic shelf label is in wired connection with the subcontrol module, so that each electronic shelf label does not need to be provided with an independent wireless module, and the cost of the electronic shelf label system is lowered.