All POP displays have a finite life, but some last longer than others. The longevity of your POP display directly impacts your return on investment. It is much harder to generate a strong return on investment on a display that only lasts for 1 selling season. Conversely, if you can make your display last for several years, it’s easier to generate an attractive payback on the display since the upfront cost can be amortized over a greater amount of product sales. In today’s blog we’ll look at 5 tips for extending the life of your POP display.
Tip #1- Design for Durability
The ultimate durability of your sustainable POP display starts with the design process. The structural integrity of your display and the material selection are important design considerations. For example, if your display has castors, make sure they are rated for the maximum weight that could go on the display. Underrated castors can shorten the life of an otherwise well-built display. For wire fixtures, make sure the wire gauge is strong enough to hold your product, and try to avoid designs that are dependent on single welding points since welds can break. For POP displays that are constructed of MDF, consider using a pressure-sensitive laminate instead of a melamine finish for high traffic area or for parts of your display that may be subject to a lot of abuse. And, consider using T-molding or thicker edge banding to preserve the life of your fixture over time.
For displays that utilize acrylic, make sure the material is thick enough to minimize cracks and breakage, and invest in higher quality acrylic that won’t turn yellow after 12 months of being exposed to in-store UV lighting. Similarly, for corrugated displays, ask for UV coating to ensure maximum longevity and request a protective over-laminate on your graphics. These are just some examples of things to consider in the design and material selection process.
Tip #2- Ensure Your Display is Properly Packed
The fastest way to an early death for your display is poor packaging. If your display is heavy and weighs more than 65 pounds, pack it in 2 boxes. A box weighing more than 65 lbs. is more likely to get thrown or dropped by most UPS or FEDEX package handlers.
Packaging is expensive, and most of our customers don’t give much thought to packaging, nor do they want to pay for it. But, even if a display is well built for the weight it is designed to hold, we’ve seen how easy it is to have a display arrive with broken welds, bent wires, cracked acrylic, damaged MDF, etc.
Using double-walled boxes, foam inserts, corner protectors, fragile stickers and other smart packaging materials is important in ensuring your display arrives in 1 piece. If there is any question about how well your display will travel, consider sending it on a pallet. Although shipping cost will be higher, you can rest assured that damage will be kept to a minimum. It’s also important to consider the economic impact of lost revenue resulting from a damaged display since in most cases a damaged display will never make it to the store floor, and lost sales can add up while waiting for a replacement.
Tip #3- Make Sure Your POP Display is Easy to Service
Many customers often fail to think about how easy or difficult it will be to service their display. Displays that are difficult to service are likely to have shorter lives than displays that are easy to service. For example, if a display is too tall for a store clerk to restock the top shelf, he may step on the bottom shelf in order to reach the top shelf, which can easily lead to damage.
If your display collects dust and dirt easily in places that are hard to clean, over time it will start to look dirty and may be at risk for getting discarded by store management. Similarly, corrugated floor displays can become structurally compromised in short order if the base gets wet from mopping. Consider a clear plastic PVC tray under the base of the display to protect it from moisture and extend the life of the display.
Tip #4- Design a Display that is Easy to Re-merchandise
Let’s face it, no matter how well your display is made, over time it will inevitably grow stale. To keep customers coming back, retailers need to offer new products and fresh presentations. If you design your display correctly, you can keep things looking fresh and extend the life of your display. One way to do this is to ensure that your signs are interchangeable. Simply changing up the header and side signs can give your display a whole new look. Not only will retailers like it, but you’ll attract more customers who might think there is something new. This also enables you to offer ongoing promotional programs or seasonal programs to help keep things fresh.
Creating a modular display can help to make it easy to change your product mix without having to invest in a new display. For example, you can leverage the basic frame of the display and change the accessories or components by using shelves instead of hooks or adding a side grid to increase capacity.
Tip #5- Secure an Up-Front Commitment from the Retailer
Imagine you just made a significant investment in a display program and the retailer decides to replace your display with another merchandising program after just 1 short selling season. Chances are that you either won’t make money or you’ll have to settle for substandard margins.
It’s far better to get a commitment from the retailer for some specified period of time that you will be guaranteed real estate in the store. Obtaining that commitment is important before determining the amount of money you are willing to invest in a display. Some retailers will commit to a certain period of time subject to agreed-upon sales metrics. That’s o.k. as long as the metrics are clear, measurable, and achievable. Your chances of extending the life of your display will also increase if you can get the retailer to agree to place your display in a location where it will maximize your chances of success. Getting stuck in a dark back corner of a store is likely to result in a short lifespan for any display.
There are other things you can do to increase the life of your display, but if you only focus on these 5, you are well on your way to ensuring a longer and more successful display program.
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.