Lift Sales with Point of Purchase Displays by Jeff Walker

Point of purchase displays, strategically designed and placed to trigger impulse buying, are undeniably effective. No doubt, you've fallen under their spell more than once - most likely while waiting to check out at a supermarket or convenience store. Here's how it usually goes.

The line is slow, and you start leafing through a magazine from the rack at the top of the aisle. A couple of the articles inside look interesting, so you drop it in your basket. Meanwhile, there's a candy bar on the shelf to your left that's calling your name, and the soft drinks in the refrigerated case below the candy look good. You grab one of each. Then there's a display with gift cards. Your teenage niece has a birthday coming up, and you never know what to get her. A gift card is the perfect solution!

Before you know it, you've reached the scanner with four or five items you hadn't planned to buy when you entered the store.

If this has happened to you (and you know it has), you're not alone. According to Point of Purchase Advertising International's 2014 Mass Merchant Study:

82 percent of purchase decisions are made in the store.

A full 62 percent of in-store purchase decisions are made on impulse, with 16 percent driven by point of purchase displays.

The average lift for mass merchandise items is 1.4 percent, but items like cosmetics, batteries and lip care products achieve considerably higher lift, at 17.4 percent, 7.6 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively.

While many point of purchase displays in supermarkets, gas stations and convenience stores focus on low-ticket items, their potential uses are virtually unlimited. They're great for promoting new products/brands, sale items, seasonal/holiday products, novelty and gift items and can be effectively used in settings as widely varied as fast food restaurants, banks, hobby stores and hardware dealers.

Fulfillment: Key to Successful POP Campaigns

POP advertising runs the gamut from shelf edging, display packs, display stands, mobiles, posters and banners to elaborate fabrications involving lights, movement and sound. Complex displays may be broken into several pieces, requiring assembly instructions. And additional signage, banners and marketing literature may accompany the display.

Moreover, a typical POP campaign can involve hundreds or even thousands of locations. Variations in store size, demographics, usage volume and more may affect which display elements and how many should ship to each site. Manually placing, modifying and tracking orders to ensure that each location gets the right items in the right configurations and numbers can consume a great deal of staff time.

Given the amount of money you devote to developing an effective point of purchase campaign, it only makes sense to hire an experienced fulfillment services partner to make sure it gets delivered quickly and accurately. You need a partner that can quickly and accurately assemble display kits, package and ship them in the most cost-efficient way to ensure timely delivery in good condition. Better firms also have database capabilities to automate complex orders for multiple locations, reducing the time it takes from hours or days to just minutes. That way, whether you're shipping to 500 or 5,000 locations, you still place just one order.

In addition to maintaining store profiles to facilitate ordering, a good fulfillment company can help with:

Design-on-demand capabilities to produce customized literature and other signage to accompany kits and displays, and

Digital and variable data printing to support rush print order and accommodate store variations and localized offers.

Thinking of taking the plunge into POP? Iron Mountain has advanced systems and tools to help you create, produce and manage your marketing campaigns, online fulfillment management system, print management and on-demand printing. For more on best practices in POP fulfillment, visit our Knowledge Center and read POP Displays: to Market, to Market, Today! and POP Fulfillment When You Really Need to Wow Your Audience.

LINK:	http://blogs.ironmountain.com/2016/service-lines/marketing-production-...
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