Point Of Purchase Displays - Increasing Relevance

When it comes to what to buy, more decisions than ever before, 76% to be exact is made on the store. This in-store purchase decisions are often the major part of sales of many companies. Why Purchase decision is so unstable even though 100's of "shopping list" applications are available in the different smartphone application markets. If your answer is "The Emergence of Organized retailing", then it will not be specific. Here comes the relevance of POP's or Point of Purchase. The actual definition of point of purchase is that, "It is a place where sales are made or purchase decision is taken." So simple!! On a macro level it can be a Mall, Market or Even a city depended upon the product. On a micro level retailers consider it as a place in the store where the customer makes a purchase decision. The most frequent POP is the billing counter and the most often sold products over there are the impulse goods such as chocolates, magazines, novelties etc.. So there is a line of connection between the words Point Of Purchase, Impulse Goods and unplanned purchase decisions. On June of 2012, Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI) released the results of its recent research on the shopper decision process. To the surprise of many, the in-store decision rate according to POPAI is an all-time high of 76 percent. Now, I think i have made the title of this article more transparent. It is this increasing trend of unplanned purchase decisions that has increased the relevance of Point of Purchase displays. POP Displays can be anything such as small posters, cutouts, electric boards, shelf arrangements,display stand, dummy packs etc. which suddenly induces the customer to purchase the product.The relevance of POP displays can be well understood, if we observe the number of POP displays manufacturing and supplies companies emerging out in different parts of the world. In USA alone we can find around 50 different such firms.

In smaller retail outlets, POP displays are usually supplied by the manufacturer of the products, but located and maintained by the in-store sales persons or store managers.This is less common in larger Retail outlets such as the Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco etc.. who are usually called as the mighty retailers and is having high purchasing power. They control the supplier activities and prefer to use Displays designed in-house to ensure that store layouts and corporate themes are consistent. When I speak about POP Displays and the impulsive purchase decisions created by this, I am not underestimating the customers as someone who decides what to buy only through the Display ads inside a retail store. Customers of this  Era is filled with product knowledge more than the people of any times, but still, the availability of product in the stores, competitive pricing and POP displays do make a difference in the decision of the customer. Moreover most of the shopping lists made by the customers before visiting a store will be product based and not Brand based. So the decision regarding the brand selection is most often taken place inside the sore at least for the convenience goods. This is where the POP Displays is so important. Innovations should be regular in this field as outdated Displays and techniques can give negative results. POP Displays can fetch poor results also by Not considering the shoppers line of sight, Failure to adhere to retailers space limitations, Wrong location of the display, Over design etc.. Walmart is one retail firm which has brought revolution in Point of Purchase innovation by their latest addition of  Walmart TV, (A flat screen television which shows advertisements and other details, often attached to a shelf or rack.). This is actually creating an evolution to the POP displays to shoppers engaging instruments. Innovation is mandatory for survival in the market. While designing innovations for the different factors, Point of Purchase should be given prominent consideration as People actually buy things from there and after all the purchase decision of the customer is all that matters.