If you are a product manufacturer or brand looking to secure retail distribution, you probably know that the process can be challenging, particularly if your product is new and lacks a proven track record of generating sales. Retail buyers are inundated with companies pitching their products with the hope that the retailer will pick them up or at least agree to a meaningful store test. Retail buyers are always looking for new, better, and different products that actually solve problems or address unmet customer needs. However, to win over the retail buyer, it’s often not enough to have a great product. To close the deal the brand needs to be able to present a strong financial case to the buyer and show credible financial projections. One of the best ways to give your sales projections credibility is by showing the buyer a well conceived retail POP display program that will drive sales at the point of sale.
In today’s blog we’ll look at a comprehensive program that we developed for a brand of eco-friendly bamboo pull-out cutting boards called Pureboo®. Because Pureboo wanted to sell into a wide range of retail accounts- from specialty retail to mass market- we decided to create a family of POP displays that could meet almost any retailer need while also presenting a uniform brand image.
We started with a set of floor displays that ranged in capacity. Pureboo has 8 SKUs and wanted to be able to feature at least 4 of its best sellers on the display. The first display shown below was our solution for smaller retailers. This fixture could be merchandised as a 1- or 2-sided display with 2 or 4 pockets. We designed the display with a natural brown powder coated tube frame with screen printed branding on the base and a die-cut PVC header sign. The design was knock-down, cost effective, visually appealing, and consistent with the brand’s natural product image.
We built on the above concept to create a higher capacity unit for larger retailers whose traffic would support more product. All of the design elements are essentially the same as on the first unit, which helped to create a feeling of a family of displays. The display used the same frame and base as the first fixture but featured larger pockets.
As an alternative to the first 2 fixtures, we designed a third floor display to give retailers a choice. This 4-sided fixture was also a higher capacity unit. It shared a number of design elements of the first 2 units and presented a consistent brand image.
In addition to the floor displays, we designed an inline solution for retailers who might want to put the cutting boards on shelves and incorporate them into the plan-o-gram set. Our solution included a simple divider system with signage. It proved to be very cost effective and enabled us to utilize the 48” section of the gondola very effectively by angling the cutting boards.
Finally, we designed a corrugated shipper to meet the needs of retailers who were interested in an in-and-out or promotional program. We created a corrugated display that could hold the relatively heavy cutting boards and would look good even when partially empty. We wrapped the display in attractive, brand-reinforcing graphics and designed an outside box for shipping that would help to protect the product in shipping.
We are strong believers in creating comprehensive display programs that are built around a family of fixtures that can meet the wide-ranging needs of a variety of retailers. Such programs not only give brands credibility that helps in landing retail accounts, but they also serve to maximize sales at the point of sale once the program is launched.
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.