Getting the Most Out of Your Retail Display
This article was updated September 4, 2025
Why are displays so effective in the world of retail? The answer is simple: displays make a product accessible to shoppers.
By taking merchandise out of the box and showcasing it on a display, customers can see, touch, and engage with the product. And with nearly 60 percent of shoppers indicating they actively notice in-store displays, this interaction can significantly increase the likelihood of making a sale.
However, it’s not just the ability to interact with product that engages the consumer. Displays themselves do more than just show off merchandise. They also act as brand extensions while boosting product visibility, amplifying brand messaging, and educating shoppers.
Visual Merchandising Strategies
A display should tell a story to educate and encourage customers. Effective visual merchandising strategies consider color, lighting, layout, and signage to create a unique display. Exciting graphics and appealing visuals not only highlight features and benefits but can also boost brand image.
Remember that a display advertises the brand just as much as it advertises a specific product. Therefore, a display should properly reflect a brand’s identity.
For example, a display for a company that specializes in sustainable products should also reflect the eco-friendliness of the brand’s message. Even before reading about the product or brand, consumers should be visually greeted by the ambiance of the brand’s presence. Shoppers are instantly forming opinions about a brand from the first look.
Concise and compelling product information helps to educate consumers quickly. Nothing disrupts the purchasing decision more than a display where information is confusing or convoluted. It’s important to make sure a display is easy to navigate, assists customers in making a buying decision, and has consistent digital and print graphics across brand campaigns.
Retail Display Interaction
Interactive elements, such as touchscreens, can create a unique and memorable shopping experience that can also increase customer engagement.
A thorough understanding of how these touchscreens or monitors would be serviced and maintained is essential, but the interaction that these screens offer is expansive, involving customers in the process of brand and product education.
An additional interactive element to consider is the use of QR codes on your display that can link your customer to additional product details and interactive content on a website.
Successful display interaction can streamline the buying process and lead to increased sales, customer feedback and valuable insights for future visual merchandising strategies. And beyond increased ROI, interactive displays reduce a shopper’s dependency on staff, encouraging the customer to take a self-service approach when learning about a product.
Building Update-ability into POP Displays
Permanent POP displays do need to be updated from time to time, as seasons, products, marketing campaigns, and even technology changes.
If the shelf-life of your display is beyond a year in the field, which is generally the case for permanent retail displays, the ability to easily change those displays with new products and graphics enables them to stay fresh and continue to generate sales throughout their life.
These updates can take many forms, and it’s beneficial to prepare for the eventual evolution that will take place over a display’s lifetime. By doing so, the display can continue to best serve its purpose to merchandise new products and adapt to the times.
Software can oftentimes be adjusted remotely, allowing for any needed updates. Hardware can be serviced and replaced as needed, too. New monitors can be installed and SD cards can be regularly swapped out in order to advertise a brand’s most recent products.
Since permanent displays will likely see multiple products and product generations, having the ability to switch-out graphics over time makes the most sense, both practically and economically. This can be easily achieved using magnetic graphics.
As products change, it may become necessary to replace specific brackets or holders. Planning ahead for this eventuality means displays are designed to make these change-outs as painless as possible.
Measuring Display Performance
After investing in designing an effective display, how do brands know if their point of purchase marketing is delivering results? This is when you rely on commonly-used retail metrics.
- Sales Lift Tracking
Compare product sales before and after a display installation to determine if there’s been an increase in revenue. - Customer Engagement Metrics
Measure dwell time near displays as well as interaction with digital features and product handling frequency. - Foot Traffic and Placement Impact
Analyze how store placement changes visibility and conversions. - Surveys and Feedback
Collect customer opinions or partner with retailers to gather shopper insights on clarity, appeal, and usability.
Use these findings to optimize future displays. That includes refining messaging, expanding interactive components, or changing placement in a store (like moving a display from an aisle to an end cap).
For a more detailed look into measurable metrics, read our article “How to Measure Retail Display Success.”
Conclusion
Ultimately, a display’s true value is in how it performs. Tracking ROI through sales lift, foot traffic, dwell time, and customer surveys gives retailers and brands the data they need to validate success.
Just as important, though, is creating a feedback loop that ensures those insights inform the next iteration of displays, making them smarter and more effective than the last.
And while brands and retailers are on the front lines of measuring impact, an experienced display manufacturer plays a critical role in shaping the strategy and providing guidance in designing a successful retail display. Together, this cycle of measurement and refinement turns displays from static fixtures into ongoing drivers of business growth.
Ready to enhance your in-store experience with proven visual merchandising strategies? Explore our custom retail display solutions.