Visual Merchandising: P.O.P. Displays
Visual Merchandising is the method of displaying products in a store that will entice a consumer to buy. “POP display” is short for point of purchase display. A point of purchase display can catch the attention of prospective consumers. For as long as humans have been selling things to each other, there has been a need for point of purchase displays. Over the centuries, the vendor, the peddler, the hawker, all have needed to display their products to consumers.
POP displays are all about point of purchase displays that are types of marketing and advertising techniques or ad campaigns that boost the marketability of the goods close to which they are placed. The reputation of an item is dependent upon its advertising and marketing strategies. The benefit that promotion provides to any product is its brand name value that becomes the identity of the product or service.
By the twelfth century, shops in major European cities were well established. Traffic in bazaars and shops was important and early retailers just like today's retailers, needed to display the goods offered. Logically in an age before mass production, there were few consumer goods to promote. Nevertheless, food, clothing, footwear, furniture and cooking utensils were the essentials of life and for those who could afford them bought in shops. During the nineteenth century's industrial revolution, a wider variety of goods became readily available. Signs, posters and means of displaying these goods grew but most were largely hand crafted to serve only individual retailers.
Brand identity was evident in most of the earliest POP displays. For example; a set of golden balls representing a pawn broker or the traditional barber’s striped pole. Sometimes model figures would be placed outside a shop to attract attention. Before World War II the rivalry in many areas of