We refer to it as situational design. That is, a great retail POP design is highly dependent not only on the objectives of the brand but also on the retail environment in which the display will live. The sunglass/eyewear category is large, highly competitive, and unsuspectingly complex. Its complexity derives from the fact that eyewear is both a functional and a fashion item as well as a destination and an impulse item. Moreover, eyewear is a classic example of a product whose perceived value is often dictated by the quality of the display and the way it is merchandised. All of these factors c ..read more

I shop at Sprouts every Saturday. Like a good shepherd checking on his flock, I always make it a point to look for the Tieman’s Coffee POP display we made over 9 years ago. Sometimes I have to go out of my way to find it. One week it’s in the coffee aisle, and the next week it might be in a completely different section of the store. Shortly after we made the display, we wrote a mini case study about its remarkable performance. We used baseline data from Tieman’s and shared how the display increased sales 500% (6-fold) over its historical sales when it shared crowded shelf space with other comp ..read more

The chief objective of visual merchandisers is to capture shopper attention, captivate shoppers intellectually and emotionally, and ultimately convert them from shoppers to customers. Delivering on the 3 C’s- capturing, captivating, and converting- is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge in today’s highly competitive, visually noisy retail landscape where hurried and distracted shoppers no longer read but instead are obsessed with, or perhaps, possessed by their cell phones and social media. Faced with these modern-day challenges, what is the best way to get your product and your cust ..read more

If you are thinking about creating a retail floor shelf display, it always makes sense to start the design process by asking 3 questions: What are my merchandising objectives? What do I want the display to communicate about my brand? What can I afford to spend on the display to achieve an attractive return on investment? Being able to answer these fundamental questions will help to ensure an efficient design process while also maximizing your chances for retail success. In today’s post we’ll look at 10 examples of floor shelf displays that illustrate a range of design outcomes that meet diff ..read more

About 15 years ago our Director of Operations asked if she could bring in her younger brother Tim to help in the warehouse during the summer. Fresh out of high school, Tim earned minimum wage and assisted in packing and doing a variety of odd jobs. One afternoon our head designer Will needed a break, so he started a makeshift game of baseball in the warehouse. He wadded up a ball of tape and grabbed a wood dowel for a bat. Tim jumped in as pitcher, and the game began. After striking out several times, Will noticed that Tim had a strong arm, so he asked Tim to join his men’s league baseball te ..read more

You may have seen the YouTube video of the blind man sitting cross-legged on a city street in London. A tin cup sits in front of him, and to his side is a cardboard sign that reads, “I’m Blind. Please Help.” Occasionally, someone drops a few coins into his cup, but for the most part he goes unnoticed. A young woman passes by and then turns around, grabs his sign, and writes on the back “It’s a Beautiful Day and I Can’t See It.” She places the sign next to the blind man. Soon his tin cup is overflowing. The subtle change in messaging creates an emotional connection with pedestrians who would ha ..read more

When it comes to creating extraordinary shopper experiences in the competitive world of retail, every detail matters. One critical design element that significantly influences a shopper’s experience is the retail cash wrap. The cash wrap is the point at which a store converts shoppers into customers. A well-designed and strategically located cash wrap not only serves as a functional transaction point but also plays an important role in merchandising and brand building. In today’s post, we’ll delve into the various types of retail cash wraps, discuss construction and material options, and share ..read more

Wood is an incredibly versatile natural product. As the market preference for retail displays and store fixtures continues to shift toward natural products, wood POP displays will gain greater market share relative to displays made of other materials. In addition, as U.S. companies continue to pursue reshoring and nearshoring opportunities, wood is an obvious material choice given the natural resource advantage that North America holds over other regions of the world. And finally, wood options are broad-ranging when it comes to POP displays, which is the focus of today’s post. When most people ..read more

Compared to traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores, permanent showrooms represent a significantly smaller but important segment of the retail industry. Like the tradeshow industry, permanent showrooms primarily target wholesale buyers who are searching for the latest and greatest products to offer in their retail stores. However, permanent showrooms typically feature year-round, fixed locations with long-term leases which requires a markedly different approach than the temporary, event-driven tradeshow industry. Irrespective of whether a showroom is targeting wholesale buyers or retail co ..read more

Pop-up stores are becoming increasingly popular in the world of physical retail. Pop-Up stores are often an important part of the store development and brick-and-mortar expansion strategies of fast-growing brands like Vuori. Not only do they provide an effective vehicle for testing new retail concepts, store layouts, fixture concepts, geographic locations, and new product introductions, but they can help accelerate time to market, capitalize on seasonal traffic, and establish brand presence in a new market while avoiding long-term lease obligations. Pop-up stores, also know as Pop-Up shops, ar ..read more