Handling Retail Display Issues in the Field

An often-overlooked topic when planning a retail display program is how best to support your retail program in the field throughout its lifecycle.

With the help of your retail display manufacturer, prior planning can mitigate many of the headaches to fix or replace displays if they fail in the field.

Frequent Reasons for Display Failures

The most common reasons for retail display issues in the field come down to the following:

• Transportation Damage. While displays are carefully packed to withstand the usual bumps that happen during transit, mishaps do happen and can damage displays before they even make it to the store floor.
  
  
• Store Wear and Tear. Busy retail environments involve heavy foot traffic, shopping carts, frequent set up and tear down, and sometimes even bad actors. With this type of interaction, store displays are vulnerable to damage.
  
  
• Manufacturing Defects. From time to time, parts and pieces on the display can fail. Electrical and lighting components tend to break more often because of their continuous use, complexity, and environmental exposure.

Knowing the regular culprits behind display issues can help you be better prepared when planning for a large deployment.

Planning for Failures

When deploying a large store display program, planning for failures in the field is important. A common solution is to run overages.

Overages are a small percentage of complete displays or components of a display that are added to the final order total. Investing in overages means they are costed into the project and can easily be sent to stores to replace a damaged display or piece at no cost.

It’s usual for clients to order overages of both fully built displays as well as spare parts.

Frank Mayer’s VP of Sales and In-Store Merchandising Jay Rivard expands.

“When it comes to complete displays, having a small percentage of overages can address units being damaged beyond repair,” he states. “This damage typically occurs during transportation. Regardless of how thoughtful we are in creating a carton, carriers can sometimes do the unthinkable – like dropping it off a truck, running into the carton with a forklift, or double-stacking crates.”

For parts overages, Rivard says, “we take a look at the display as a whole and itemize what parts we think could be problematic for standing up to the rigors of retail life for approximately five years.”

Some examples of parts that commonly require overages are:

• glass doors
• locks
• keys
• graphics
• video screens or SD cards

These areas on a display see more use, are more likely to be stolen, or are apt to break more easily.

Warranties and Service on Retail Displays and Parts

A good display manufacturer will provide customers with a 1-year warranty against manufacturer defects, however, Frank Mayer's experience rolling out many national and global programs means we’ve found breakage at retail is the most common culprit.

When this happens, having replacement displays and parts through an overage program is helpful to ensure the display is up and running quickly.

Even with these replacement parts, sometimes the display manufacturer will require the retailer to ship a broken part back if it’s still under the original equipment manufacturer’s warranty. That way, the display supplier receives a warranty part replacement.

Additionally, brands will often sign service level agreements with installation companies to make any needed repairs to a display. This is especially common in the event of display programs that utilize multiple electronic components or have a product portfolio that is ever evolving.

Conclusion

While permanent retail displays are designed to hold up in busy environments, issues can arise. Being prepared with a plan from the beginning means your display can be serviced or replaced quickly, costing you less downtime in store.