Merchandising

Impulse Sales and Queue Merchandising

The power of impulse selling is well understood in the retail industry, most stores give some thought to capturing impulse sales which help boost basket size. In many cases the favored impulse sales location is the checkout, the problem is that customers at the checkout are busy, feel under pressure from the people behind, and often give no thought to making an additional purchase. People standing in the checkout queue (line), however, are idle and will engage with anything that will provide stimulus (ever see people in a supermarket checkout line treating the magazine rack as a library?) and this creates the ideal selling environment.

The Stats

Experience across many different retail formats shows that up to 10% of customers will make a purchase of items merchandised in the checkout queue. There are no other locations in a store where 10 % of all customers will make a purchase. We usually find that sales of items merchandised in the queue increase by 25%-50% and in some cases much higher than that.

Queue Merchandising and Perceived Waiting Time

Apart from driving sales revenue from what was previously dead floor space, merchandising the queue has a secondary but quite important advantage. Professor David Maister of Harvard Business School in his seminal paper The Psychology of Waiting Lines notes that “occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time”, which is why waiting rooms typically have magazines and televisions. Providing merchandise in the queue not only increases sales but provides something to engage waiting customers making the wait seem shorter.

Queue Merchandising System

Queue Solutions has developed a simple merchandising system designed to work with existing retractable belt stanchions. By retro fitting slatwall panels to existing stanchions retailers reduce cost. Of course, if required we can supply stanchions with the slatwall panels as a complete set. In addition to the queue based slatwall we offer an extensive range of merchandising fixtures specifically designed for the queue environment including shelves, baskets, bowls, and signage. These are low cost, portable, simple to install, and can be used with most brands of queuing stanchions. Our system is fully scalable making it equally suitable for stores of any size from convenience to big box formats

Merchandising System Components

Display Bowl
This is the simplest queue merchandising fixture and an ideal low-cost way to test the potential of queue merchandising. Fitted with an adapter to allow it to slide onto the top of a retractable belt stanchion this 12” diameter clear polycarbonate bowl is an ideal fixture for those small impulse items suited for sale in the checkout line. Increase capacity by adding bowls to more stanchions or go to our unique Twin Bowl model.

Post Collar
This simple device is the heart of our merchandising system. This is a hinged collar that clamps around the stanchion and is tightened using the allen key provided. The collar provides attachment points for the slatwall panels. The collar allows slatwall panels to be set up quickly by a single person, no additional tools and no skills required!

Slatwall Panels
We offer two sizes of aluminum slatwall. 49” wide by 36” high and the Extra Height 49” x 48”. We use aluminum rather than PVC as it is more durable, the slats don’t burr with repeated use, and it keeps the fixture looking fresh and new for years. 1” slat spacing gives more useable merchandising space than traditional slatwall.

Shelves
We have flat metal and wire slant shelves in a variety of sizes. Adjustable shelves are also available.

Baskets
A large 22” x 12” slant basket for bulky items.

Acrylics
A range of acrylic fixtures, magazine holders, pockets and trays of various sizes are all available.

Frequently Asked Merchandising Questions