Gimmicky product displays boost sales

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📝 Intro

You’re about to launch a new brand of biscuits, stuffed with pineapple jam. 

Everything is good to go. For the launch, you’re going to have a dedicated promotional space in your store, and you’re now deciding how you should display the new product. You boiled it down to two options:

• Standard stacking: items stacked one on top of another in a giant cube, maximizing the boxes in the display.

• Creative stacking: Build a large sphere out of your yellow packaging, with palm leaves added at the top to resemble a giant pineapple.

Research finds that going for the second option isn’t just fun, it can double your product’s sales.

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Unexpected or out-of-the-box displays of products increase their sales

Topics: Retail Store
For: B2C
Research date: February 2021
Universities: Monash University, Queensland University of Technology, Capital University of Economics and Business, University of Technology Sydney

📈 Recommendation

To boost sales of a specific product in a physical store, stack or display it in a fun and imaginative way.

For example, instead of simply stacking boxes on top of one another, build shapes or figures that align with your product’s identity (e.g. energy drinks stacked in the shape of a rocket).

People will pay more attention, like the product more, and be more likely to buy it.

🎓 Findings

• People are more likely to buy products when they’re displayed in a fun and imaginative way.

• In 2 field experiments and 4 online experiments, researchers found that:

  • When a candy store displayed boxes of chocolates in a cylindrical shape (vs a standard cube), sales increased by 189.3%

  • In a grocery store, when tissue boxes were arranged in a quasi-circular cone, the change caused a 53.02% increase in ROI ($43.61 extra profit, with $28.5 more spent on labor)

  • People were 15.64% more likely to want to buy toilet paper when it was stacked in the shape of a bear and 27.75% more likely to want to buy an energy drink when it was displayed in a battle tank display

• The effect

  • Holds for both familiar and new products

  • Backfires if the imaginative display doesn’t align with the product or its benefits (e.g. stacking boxes of relaxing tea in the shape of a battle tank)

🧠 Why it works

• When we see an imaginative product display, it looks different and stands out from what we expect, catching our eye and making us stop and notice.

• We are also more interested in buying products with a novel or unexpected look.

• Similarly, if we think the imaginative shape looks nice, it positively affects how we think about the brand.

• This makes us more likely to interact with the product and buy it.

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✋ Limitations

• The main focus of this research was to understand the effect of product displays in physical stores. While it did not directly research the effect in ecommerce settings, it’s worth testing it in such contexts too (e.g. display products in a fun arrangement on a product page or your homepage).

• The experiments tested products that are generally bought impulsively or with little pre-planning or research (chocolates, tissues, toothpaste). When people buy items where quality is very important (e.g. fine wine) or something they’ve researched beforehand (e.g. moisturizer suited to a skin type), it’s unclear if the display would have an impact.

• The study also didn’t look at how imaginative shapes might work for displays of fresh or perishable items (e.g. fruits and vegetables or seafood). Lavish displays might be less attractive due to hygiene concerns about handling the products.

• The research also focused on displays that were both unexpected and visually appealing (e.g. a cone of chocolates or a tank built out of drink cans). Some displays might not be considered attractive by all customers, limiting whether the effect would work.

🏢 Companies using this

• Coca-Cola saw sales increase by 13% when it introduced an inverted pyramid display for Coke Zero.

• Grocery stores occasionally build creative and gimmicky displays of beer and other drinks, but it’s unclear whether they do so to increase the product’s sales, or to improve their own branding.

• Possibly due to constraints on staff time, this is less prevalent at discount stores, where products are often left in their larger cartons instead of displayed.

An elaborate display by South American food company Bauducco showcasing their baked goods products.

⚡ Steps to implement

• In your physical stores, display products in fun and imaginative shapes. For example, you can use the color of the packaging or shape of the product, and stack it on top of one another. 

• Try to build something that is out of the ordinary for your product category, but still relevant (e.g. stack cans or bottles to build a shape or design beyond the traditional pyramid used in many supermarkets).

• This works best if your product is bought impulsively, or with little research or prior thinking by your customers, like snacks, drinks or toiletries.

• When building your display, make sure it matches the identity or positioning of your product, for example:

  • For energy drinks, look at creating shapes or designs that highlight energy or vitality, like a lightning bolt

  • For products targeting kids, like cookies, look at designs that would attract them or their parents, like building a castle or an animal

• Be careful with how creative you make your display - if it compromises the visual appeal of your product or makes it difficult to take a product from the display, it’s not worth it. Similarly, if your display looks too cluttered or unattractive, it could backfire.

• Place these displays at high-visibility and traffic locations within your store - such as areas near checkout counters or by the entrance.

• On your website, experiment with showing images with creative and fun arrangements of your products (e.g. showing chocolates arranged as a heart). Without physical constraints, you have even more opportunities to be creative.

🔍 Study type

Online experiments and field experiments (in a grocery store and a confectionery store in Australia)

📖 Research

Gimmicky or Effective? The Effects of Imaginative Displays on Customers’ Purchase Behavior. Journal of Marketing (February 2021)

🏫 Researchers

• Hean Tat Keh. Monash Business School, Monash University

• Di Wang. QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology

• Li Yan. College of Business Administration, Capital University of Economics and Business

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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