This post is the first in a 2-part series in which our primary objective is to share hat display stand examples that can serve as the basis for a successful retail merchandising program. Caps, hats, knits, and other types of headwear represent a huge product segment within the apparel category. It’s a $3+ billion business and has been growing as a result of a recovering economy, growth is outdoor sporting activities, demographic shifts, and changing fashion trends.
Headwear is an impulse category as much as it is a destination item. This, combined with the fact that the industry is highly fragmented and extraordinarily competitive, underscores the importance of having an effective retail display. Today, we’ll look at the first 10 of 20 examples of ball cap displays & other headwear racks that we hope will provide some creative inspiration for your next POP display project. In Part II of this blog series, we’ll review the other 10 display examples.
Our first example is a 2-sided cap display we designed for Bioworld Merchandising. This knock-down wire display includes 28 cap shelves, each of which holds 6-8 caps. The side-by-side caps on this metal hat display stand are separated by a wire divider. We created an interchangeable header sign and added full-length side graphics to include product and lifestyle shots.
Our second example is an all-knit floor merchandiser we designed for Ambler Mountain. Simple in its construction, this display includes a 5-star metal base, a 3-part pole, removable header, and 5 spinning knit tiers with individual frames to display the knits.
Third, we wanted to show an example of a simple way to cross-merchandise caps with other apparel items. This is our stock SFL-HRACK, and there’s really no magic to this one since the hats just sit on a shelf. The downside of this approach is there is no real organizing mechanism to keep the caps tidy so a nice presentation is somewhat dependent on having conscientious store personnel to keep everything looking good. However, in this example there are only a limited number of hats so the risk of things getting in disarray are lower than you might find with a high-volume headwear fixture.
Our fourth example is a variation of our stock CAP-8 rack. If you are familiar with that unit, it is known for its distinctive “wave” that is designed into the uprights. This is one we designed for Adidas. We made it a 6-pocket fixture, added side and front pocket branding, a custom header sign, and a black curved plastic base cover with branding.
In an attempt to create a counter cap display for Adidas within the same family of displays, we designed the 4-pocket display shown below. The base, header sign, and cap pockets are removable so the unit ships in a relatively flat box. We kept the front and side branding on the pockets, and this time we powder coated the unit in bright blue instead of black like the floor display shown above.
As long as we are talking about Adidas, take a look below at the Adidas hat display stand that we designed. This 1-sided cap display includes a branded MDF base, a metal center post with a vertical graphic channel for an interchangeable sign, a branded header and 12 branded wire cap pockets, each for which holds 6-8 caps.
If you’ve ever been in a Lids store, the next concept will be familiar to you. If you have wall space in your store and are looking to fit as much headwear product as possible, you might want to take an approach like the one shown below. This is basically just a wall of caps with some Legacy Athletic header signage and branded wire pockets. It’s relatively unimaginative, but we wanted to present it as an option for those who might be interested in maximizing wall space.
Our next example shown below is a customization of our stock SW-62FL 2-sided hat stand display slatwall unit. Using this standard slatwall unit, we added 26 branded sheet metal pockets and created branded belt hangers. We finished the unit by incorporating PVC side signs and a header sign to make it a well-branded, cross-merchandising fixture.
Our final two examples were hat display stands we designed for New Era. The first is a 1- sided, 16-pocket cap display that leverages our upright wave design and features 8 levels of side-by-side wire cap pockets. We added a vacuum formed base cover, a vertical back panel graphic, and a die-cut header sign.
We created an 18-pocket variation of this display shown below which has 6 levels of three pockets. We designed a larger vacuum formed base cover, sheet metal cap pockets, and a large curved PVC header sign.
In our next blog, we’ll look at 10 more examples of hat display stands.
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 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. He 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.
