Point-of-Sale Displays
One of the best investments of your marketing dollars
that you can make is in point-of-sale displays. These
displays allow you to dramatically increase the impact
of your product at the moment it counts most—at
purchase time. Such displays are most effective for impulse
items or items for which consumers do not have brand loyalty.
Large displays set up in prominent locations in high-traffic
supermarkets have been shown to increase the rate of sales
by as much as 64-fold over the same items sold from their
regular shelf locations.
Set-up
The biggest difficulty in point-of-sale displays is getting
retailers to actually use them. Most retail chains in
the US are very selective in deciding which products to
accept displays for. They often expect the manufacturer
to offer cash incentives for the privilege of allowing
you to set up a display in their stores. Some store managers
of national retail chains will make their own decisions
as to what displays they will accommodate on their floors,
even if you have an agreement with the national office
that is backed by cash incentives and guarantees. Even
if you do manage to get display exposure, merchants prefer
to keep displays up for short periods of time in order
to keep the impression of their merchandise mix fresh
and appealing to their consumers.
Shelf talkers
Shelf talkers are signs that appear alongside a given
item on the shelf. They can be very effective and, best
of all, cost relatively little to produce. They require
brief copy that can grab a consumer's attention.
Posters
Posters are the least inspiring point-of-sale display
vehicle when used to attract consumers to products they
were not previously aware of. But they can be very effective
in pulling in customers to purchase a product they have
some knowledge of—perhaps through an extensive advertising
or publicity campaign.
Counter displays
Counter displays are sometimes called prepacks when the
display also serves double duty as a counter item. Merchants
generally use counter displays for low-priced items that
a consumer might decide to purchase on impulse while they
are waiting for sales assistance or standing at the cash
register. Small novelty items are ideal for counter displays.
Counter displays need to be attractive. They also need
to be conservative in space requirements and height so
as not to obstruct the line of vision between the sales
clerk and the customer.
Dumps
Floor displays, commonly referred to as dumps, are most
effective if placed at the front of the store. This location
guarantees viewing by the maximum number of visiting consumers.
This arrangement is the most powerful of all point-of-sale
display options.
This type of display is often fabricated out of card
stock but it can be very expensive to manufacture. Typically
merchants reserve the display of dumps for their top brands
and fastest selling promotions.
By Streetwise Small Business Start-Up
