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Sweets — the pleasurable seduction at the POS

The discrepancy between shopping lists and shopping baskets is probably no greater for any product group than for food and beverages. Confectionery is at the very top of this “discipline”.
Consumers are increasingly making spontaneous decisions and ignoring their own shopping plans, their shopping lists and throwing other attractive and “eye-catching” offers impulsively into their shopping trolleys..

This means that, depen­ding on their mood, they buy less, but usually more or some­thing diffe­rent than plan­ned. In addi­tion to this “disci­pli­nary decline”, there is another pheno­me­non: the average shopper’s length of stay in the shop conti­nues to decrease! In plain language, this means that the time — the short moment — requi­red to perceive the indi­vi­dual offers tends to decrease steadily!

In this context one has to have high appre­cia­tion for the product mana­gers and pack­a­ging desi­gners on the one hand, but also deep regret on the other hand:

Experts of this species create “facings” accor­ding to all the rules of art and the profound findings of sales psycho­logy. The harm­ony of colour, design, illus­tra­tion and text has been perfectly achie­ved. Every viewer from the target group (and who isn’t?), who consciously looks at this product for only 5 seconds, lite­rally has his mouth wate­ring. The emer­ging desire for plea­sure can hardly be suppres­sed. The seduc­tive pack­a­ging increa­ses the desi­ra­bi­lity of the appe­ti­sing product to a maxi­mum. The custo­mer should have access to the presen­ta­tion! — So much for the reco­gni­tion!

Now for regret: The 5 seconds cont­act time are pure utopia! Even one second of “percep­tion” often remains a dream. In many cases the hurried shop­per does not notice this great product at all! — Isn’t that regrettable?

And not only that, this has also direct influence on turno­ver and profit, on regu­lar or second place­ment. It is obvious: An impulse purchase needs an impulse! — This is trig­ge­red by the posi­tive percep­tion in the super­mar­ket.

The causal connec­tion is clear: the better the percep­ti­bi­lity, the higher the chance of sending out posi­tive impul­ses. Or the brutal reverse conclu­sion: Products that are not percei­ved posi­tively have no chance of ending up in the shop­ping cart as impulse purcha­ses! From this point of view, take a criti­cal look at the presen­ta­tion of the products in the markets. The P.O.S. as Point of Sales often muta­tes into a “Part of Stock” at best. After the first products have been sold, the rest disap­pears into niches that can hardly be seen any more, possi­bly bags or thin products fall onto the “face” or — even better — are stacked flat on the shelf. Now, at the latest, the point has been reached where the pack­a­ging designer’s mood reaches zero!
Weekly perfor­man­ces filled with crea­tive sessi­ons, photo shoots and discus­sions about layout alter­na­ti­ves are simply a waste of time: No one can see your beau­tiful product design!

In order to preserve the opti­mal sales chan­ces, typi­cal impulse purchase artic­les in parti­cu­lar must be presen­ted with the facing (not in the stack!) in the best visi­ble area on the shelf front.

There are many intel­li­gent solu­ti­ons for the opti­mi­sa­tion of front presen­ta­tion today like push­feed or glide systems. Of course, confec­tion­ery is the cate­gory without limit, where visi­bi­lity is most important. What people don´t see, they cannot buy. Ther­e­fore the best results of sales increase, reduc­tion of shelf main­tanance and impro­ve­ment of shop­per orien­ta­tion are achie­ved in this cate­gory (See case studies here: POS TUNING FALLBEISPIELE). Product desi­gners must love front facing solu­ti­ons.

POS Regaloptimierung Bereich Schokolade