Tips for designing & creating a successful POP display

It can be a real challenge for a company to get their product onto the shelves in a store, especially with all the competition. Even if they do succeed in displaying their product and getting valuable shelf space, the edge is lost when the item is lumped together with lots of similar products from competitors.

Whether you are in Walmart or your local neighborhood store, you may have noticed that a lot of the shelves are untidy and disorganized, despite efforts by store employees.

A POP Display, or point of purchase display is a way of using innovative packaging techniques to keep brand equity and keep a brand competitive. If you are a manufacturer, it’s the point at which the real persuasive selling techniques kick in, as long as your display provider is doing their job, and more and more product managers are realizing the benefits of a POP display.

Most product packaging is boring and unimaginative, as a quick look around the soap aisle at your local Walmart will demonstrate. Most of us can’t read the tiny print on the different packages and other than the colors and the logo, all the products tend to look the same.

Retail Store Shelving

Crowding products on to the shelves tends to diminish the product’s value. It may also be a big box store conspiracy to make everyone be competitive on the price by quashing brand differentiation. If your product is sitting forlornly on the shelf like a lost dog waiting to be chosen, it may be time for a change of strategy.

The POPAI shopper engagement study of 2012 points out that a customer is less likely to buy your product if you aren’t making a point of displaying it. Today’s shoppers have more choice than ever, what with private labels, premium labels and organic labels. You may be losing the battle taking place on the shelving to grab the attention of customers if you are not using in store marketing. Almost one in every six brand purchases are made when that brand is present on an in store display, according to the same 2012 study. Any product that has a low price and yet is of good quality has the potential to sell well and it is obvious that many independent manufacturers just aren’t trying hard enough. After all, there is only room for so many soap brands on the shelves. It can be extremely hard to fight the power of the big brands and you cannot always rely on primary packaging selling your product for you. Your brand equity is suffering because of the situation on the shelves at the major stores.

A small packet or bottle of soap doesn’t stand much chance of standing out, especially when most consumers are price conscious. An effective POP display is one of the best ways to get your product noticed and sold in smaller boutique stores and large retail outlets. You can really get your brand message across by using POP packaging design techniques the right way.

Attract the Sleepwalking Shopper

It’s important to attract the attention of those shoppers who are shopping on autopilot, and a good POP display will do just that. However, you also need to have your display positioned in such a way that it stands out and is noticed, and in the soap category, standing out from the rest of the brands is the key. A pallet display, such as the one on the right, forces a shopper to look at the product stacked up on it and ignore the products on the shelves, although shelf displays can still attract customers. Think big and bold, something that really grabs the attention.

You can advertise your product benefits with a good POP display, as your packaging cant really do that.

In the graphic below, the tagline and SUDAFED logo are both highly visible, and the individual packages are at basket height and to the right, allowing a shopper to easily and quickly grab one.

If you want to outperform the competition, a good POP display is the way to go and if you are ready to do that, Ravenshoe Packaging can help you. Be sure to ask about a new trend that is making packaging people excited – Ready for Retail. Once you know about this, you will want to put it in place for your products.

Instead of thinking of pop packaging as boxes, think of them as being highly persuasive selling tools and persuasive packaging is one of the most important aspects of packaging design. POP can attract a shopper, persuade them to buy your product instead of the competition and can reposition your brand and give it the boost you badly need.

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