12 Tips For Creating Award Winning Retail Displays

Appearances matter at retail and club stores, and that doesn’t just mean your product or packaging. If you choose a simplistic display, you’ll never make an impact on your business. You should always aim to create an award winning retail display, so let’s get into some tips.

It’s important that you create the right display for your needs, and most importantly give customers an in-store experience. The best displays create an impression for your brand that lasts with customers.

If your brand is having trouble with designing a retail display that is executing at retail, this blog may help.

Next are 12 expert tips to creating and executing award winning retail displays that pop at the store.

Contact Bennett today for an award winning retail display

The first step to take when designing a retail display is to define your goals. Carefully constructing this overall goal for your display is key to your success. Otherwise you’ll get lost in a spiral of possibilities.

Every design and logistic choice you make will revolve around this initial vision statement. 

Are you introducing a new product into the market? Or are you creating a new niche? Are you simply looking to sell 200% more products than your current revenue?

Set your goals up front and you’ll be headed in the right direction.

Next, customers react to colors differently, so that means you need to choose your colors wisely. Your design must implement some sort of stopping power, that gets customers to walk up and interact with your products. 

Start by choosing bold and bright colors, and combinations that are extremely vivid.

• White: Sophistication, ease, class, innocence are expressed by White. In order to create an air of high-end goods that draws such buyers, Apple made white work for their products.
• Black: When used right, black is very similar to white. This can produce a commodity that cries for elegance and sophistication. Black is usually used to create a particular color association in the mind of the client in conjunction with another color.
• Yellow: This can be seen as bright and enjoyable, but since it stands out so much, it can also be distracting. Look at the candy aisle, there's plenty of yellow here! Yellow stands out, but must be efficiently used.
• Green: It’s all about environmentally sustainable, better quality of fitness, veganism, health, natural food, or even peace. Green is also used today to point out goods that through sustainable practices, strive for wellness and positivity.
• Blue: In marketing, blue is one of the most used colors. It creates a sense of a trustworthy brand, playful or even light-hearted sometimes, depending on the shade you pick. Dark shades tend towards sophistication, light shades in the mind of the customers may appeal to children or feel "light".
• Purple: It's all about royalty, silk, and a posh experience in purple. The belief that your commodity is for a higher class can be strengthened by this.
• Red: Finally, this is a color which, depending on the hue, may also be used differently. For romantic feelings, red can be used, but it can also produce an energizing or even violent look. For sure, one thing is it's attention catching.

Next, and one of the most important steps in determining which display type is best for your campaign. How many products you need to be on display will affect a number of things.

First, the display size that you will need. If you’re looking to sell a huge amount of product, you may want a Pallet Display. Or if you only want to offer a handful of products, a smaller Floor Display might be the right option.

This will also affect the load capacity of the display. More products mean sturdier materials and designs.

The other thing it will affect is your downtime at retail. How often will your display need to be restocked? The less time your display “looks empty” the more time you can be selling.

Now think about the phases of the customer to determine the information architecture. You want to have large words that attract customers from a distance, and then smaller information that includes product benefits when they walk up to the display.

Keep your messaging simple. Five to seven words are best when describing your product benefits. And using bold, easy to read fonts, are the best option.

Most customers today have knowledge about different products and categories before they head to the store, so you don’t want to waste space on information that they may already know. Find a way to target the specific information they need.

The last thing to consider is your target customer’s height. Where should you place the messaging so it strikes them at the right time!

Next, your display should grab their attention. The best way to do that is to appeal to our five senses: Touch, smell, sound, taste, and of course sight.

Using a multi-sensory customer service approach would provide them with something they can't find in an online shop. Your show unexpectedly becomes something they need to engage with. 

Whether you include additional items such as lights or motion-activated items, creating a display that interacts with a customer will lead to more sales instead of being a passive experience.

Sometimes the best option is an additional cutout that displays the product in a close up with high resolution imagery. Choosing the right color combinations can put the customer in a certain mood when they see your product.

Now how can you get your customer excited about your product in some way? The human face is typically the most attractive option for brands, as people are drawn to other people, but what else can you try?

If it’s sports season, creating a sport themed display will attract those customers instantly. Or if you are offering wine, creating the look of a vineyard or winery will make your products look that much more premium.

Finding what makes your target customers tick will help you decide what your retail display design should be.

Think about the whole campaign next. Some of the most exciting campaigns of the last decade have been created by taking an approach that includes the entire retail environment of the customer, and even extending it with a digital experience.

If you can create a presentation that connects to social media, whether the show picture is posted or the graphics are connected to a promotional campaign, you can improve exposure and boost revenue.

Giving customers a full experience takes your brand from plain to premium in their eyes. They're going to notice you and come back for more.

What is your brand’s best chance to create an experience?

Creating a custom retail display and bringing it to market is now less expensive than it has ever been. Digital Printing gives you the flexibility to quickly prototype, adjust your messaging, and change with the marketplace.

First, let’s talk about designs. So many brands take a one-size-fits-all approach to their retail displays, and that’s because they’re using traditional methods.

Imagine creating a single dieline, but multiple graphic options. More displays + more products = more sales. By refreshing your look at retail every few months, you’ll sell more products.

Next compare the tooling costs. When you want to create a retail display, other printing methods need several weeks in lead time, and the up front costs to create printing plates. That means before you get your first display, you need a bigger upfront budget.

These are one-time costs, and can discourage many brands from creating alternate designs. Imagine if you didn’t need to factor those into your budget? Where else could that money go?

It is extremely essential to consider the store's foot traffic flow. You increase the odds of reaching your client by placing your display in the right area. 

Does your item pair well with the electronic section's printers? Or does your item need to be close to the food for the baby? At the right time, hitting your customer can make or break your sales.

Or you might be running a digital campaign that they will see as soon as a hanging show enters the shop. 

Whatever you pick, as a potential customer, go through the store and decide the best choice for your next show.

Next is a step that can become a huge roadblock if you’re working with the wrong team. You want to make sure you’re starting with designs that are already retailer complaint, so you don’t waste any time.

Here are 5 other considerations:

1. Lock in the retailer’s requirements, including; style guides, visual merchandising standards, rules for type usage, changing store formats, and display authorization procedures.
2. Design your display for the allotted floor space.
3. If assembly is required, the typical timeframe is 5-10 minutes, anything over will likely need a redesign. Be sure to include detailed planograms for proper assembly.
4. Failure to deliver on time can cost a retailer and a brand thousands of lost dollars in potential sales.
5. Make sure your displays have a restocking plan in place to minimize downtime.

Once you finalize everything, your retail display is ready to go into full production. You can sit back, relax, and wait for the arrival of your display! Receiving your shipment all depends on your requested timeline, the size of the display, the method of delivery, etc.

It is different depending on your situation, but your account manager will keep you up-to-date with the production and shipping process, ensuring that you are always on track.

Key Questions:

• Will your Display be shipped fully assembled or KDF?
• What is the weight of your Display with your Shipping Box and Supplies?
• Where will you store your Display?
• What is the cost for Packaging Supplies?
• Fulfillment costs, if any?
• How will you account for returns?

Pro Tip: If you need to order on a consistent basis, speak to your product specialist to map out your inventory expectations and schedule. This will make it easier to maintain a healthy inventory flow and allow the manufacturer to know exactly when you need it.

One of the most important things you need to do is stay on top of maintenance.

Don’t neglect your display upkeep. Even the best displays will lose their appeal if they look dusty or worn down. Remember, your display represents your brand and your product - if you invest in a great display, you should make sure it stays presentable.

Displays should be checked regularly, even throughout the day. That way you can be confident they never appear “shopworn”.

Bennett is a premier packaging and retail displays manufacturing company striving to protect and promote our clients' products with customized corrugated solutions. When you work with us, you’re part of the family. We will partner with you every step of the way.

With our fully-integrated design-to-delivery process, we can be the single supplier source. We are an award-winning manufacturer of virtually anything corrugate. We offer everything from plain brown shipping boxes to sophisticated, high-graphic printed point-of-purchase displays, and everything in between.

Contact Bennett today for an award winning retail display