In today’s blog, we’ll look at 10 recent examples in which we used different types of materials to create POP displays that are affordable, functional, and effective from a merchandising standpoint. We get a lot of questions from customers and prospects regarding the best materials to use so we thought it would be helpful to show a variety of examples of how different materials can be used. The answer as to what materials are best to use in creating your POP display can be summed up in two words: it depends. It depends on durability requirements, aesthetic objectives, functionality goals, holding capacity, store décor considerations, budget availability, project timing, and much more. Let’s look at some practical day-to-day examples of POP displays to see what materials we used and how we used them.
1. Be Inspired Spinning Pegboard Display- We created this 4-sided spinning tower using an MDF base/inner panel and pegboard sides. Pegboard is generally not that appealing visually, but it provides a lot of merchandising flexibility, is economical and can be a good choice when your product mix is likely to change in the future. On this display we also used injection molded plastic shelves on the inside, wire shelves and hooks on the outside, and a screen printed 4-sided acrylic header.
2. Bodyography Brush Display- When it comes to the cosmetics/beauty category, acrylic has achieved industry-standard status. The main reason is that acrylic has a premium look, and it is a fairly easy material to work with. It can be cut on a CNC machine, polished to make edges smooth, curved, bent, and folded into many shapes. It is easy to digitally print or silk screen on acrylic. It also comes in a variety of colors, thicknesses and finishes. Since acrylic comes in sheets, it is important to think about material yield when designing your display. Acrylic is lower on the durability spectrum and can easily crack or break so it is important to be thoughtful about how your acrylic display is packed. The example below is a brush display we made for Bodyography. It uses both clear and white acrylic with screen-printed graphics.
3. TRX Training Kiosk- You might see one of the TRX Training kiosks we made below at your local health club. Just squat in front of the kiosk 3 times and you’ll get an instant on-screen and email assessment of your fitness and mobility based on thousands of data points. Pretty cool technology. The original version of this kiosk was made primarily of MDF since it proved to be cheaper than sheet metal, but we switched to sheet metal in subsequent versions for greater durability. The version shown below also has some sheet metal accents and a lighted acrylic header with screen-printed graphics.
4. Sengled Counter Display- The Sengled counter display shown below was designed to incorporate a digital media player to explain the company’s line of smart lighting products. We chose sintra as the core material for this display since it is light weight and easily accommodates direct printing. We cut the sintra on our CNC machine and also used it to create a bezel around the digital media player.
5. EZVIZ Endcap Modules- We made the 3 modular EZVIZ displays shown below for an endcap display for Staples stores. Designed to showcase the company’s line of smart home products, these displays could be put together as a merchandising set or set up as independent displays. Unlike the Sengled display above, we used white acrylic as the primary material to manufacture these displays. We direct printed on the acrylic and created removable product panels anchored by aluminum stand-offs so the product could be easily changed out without having to replace the display.
6. IKEYP Counter Display- One last example of this genre of displays is the IKEYP display we made below. It is very similar to the Sengled display in that for budgetary reasons we used sintra with direct printing instead of acrylic. The main difference is we mounted a smart safe on the base deck instead of a digital media player and embedded the monitor into the back panel.
7. Pura Vida Spinning Counter Display- We manufactured the spinning counter display shown below to merchandise Pura Vida’s Costa Rican-made bracelets. We used multiple materials on this display: a plastic bearing, wood base and panels with white weathered finish, a metal frame and base lip, metal pegs, and a PVC header with digitally printed graphics.
8. Minted Greeting Card Display- The high-end, stepped greeting card display shown below is an example of how MDF can be used on displays to create the underlying structure and then how a wood laminate can be applied to the MDF to create a wide range of looks. In this case we used a relatively expensive laminate, but there are cheaper wood laminates that are a lot more readily available, albeit less distinctive. We also used powder coated metal posts to hold the header sign and white laser-cut letters for the logo.
9. Nongshim Noodle Cart- We designed and fabricated the retail cart below to merchandise Nongshim’s line of noodle cups. We constructed the unit out of solid pine but included a plywood deck, laser-cut acrylic graphics and a direct printed PVC overhead sign.
10. Soulstice- We designed the counter display shown below to merchandise Soulstice’s new line of eco-aware bracelets. We used a combination of China birch plywood and stained solid pine to create a display that could hold Soulstice’s carded bracelets. We added screen-printed base and digitally printed header graphics.
Jim Hollen is the owner and President of RICH LTD. (www.richltd.com), a 35+ year-old California-based point-of-purchase display, retail store fixture, and merchandising solutions firm which has been named among the Top 50 U.S. POP display companies for 9 consecutive years. A former management consultant with McKinsey & Co. and graduate of Stanford Business School, Jim Hollen has served more than 3000 brands and retailers over more than 20 years and has authored nearly 500 blogs and e-Books on a wide range of topics related to POP displays, store fixtures, and retail merchandising.
Jim has been to China more than 50 times and has worked directly with more than 30 factories in Asia across a broad range of material categories, including metal, wood, acrylic, injection molded and vacuum formed plastic, corrugated, glass, LED lighting, digital media player, and more. Jim Hollen also oversees RICH LTD.’s domestic manufacturing operation and has experience manufacturing, sourcing, and importing from numerous Asian countries as well as Vietnam and Mexico.
His experience working with brands and retailers spans more than 25 industries such as food and beverage, apparel, consumer electronics, cosmetics/beauty, sporting goods, automotive, pet, gifts and souvenirs, toys, wine and spirits, home improvement, jewelry, eyewear, footwear, consumer products, mass market retail, specialty retail, convenience stores, and numerous other product/retailer categories.