GameStop POP Displays Essay

I recently went to a retail shop near my house to observe a number of things about point of purchase of a number of items displayed. I visited the store which was one of the most talked about in my area so tempted to try that place I paid a trip to GameStop, being only a quarter mile away from my house. Upon entering the shop I was fascinated by the size and the rush of the people at the store. At that spur of moment I realized that this place will most definitely possess a variety of items at display. As I moved around I noticed there was adequate space for the crowd to view each and every display. But obviously there were certain items that really attracted people for various reasons, either out of curiosity or genuinely being interested in the displayed matter. After a whole walk through of the GameStop store, I counted and checked with the reception that there were 22 displays to ensure I dint miss out any of them for my observation. The object that really caught my attention was the Guitar Hero World Tour as it was the first display I stood and the longest. This is because the minute I entered the shop, the item was right in front so it was unlikely that anyone would have missed it. Also owing to the fact that high definition television with surround sound is one of my interests but the facility to reserve a copy of my own and the date of when it will be released really impressed me. To my disappointment Little Big Planet was really unsuccessful, not just in my view but the general public as well. No release date was mentioned so there was no point pondering over it. Maybe that’s why it was displayed at a dimly lit area, right at the back of the store. Also being stacked being other displays just made it even more difficult to reach out to it. I even went up to the store manager to get a better insight on how they operated the POP display. As a layman I questioned him over POP displays and trade allowances on which he was well informed. He mentioned that POP displays were used as means of sales promotion and getting the customer in the game shop. For example Play Station 3 was prominently situated right at the center of the store so that most of the customer traffic gathered around there, in that way once they were done with having a feel of Play Station 3, they will have to go through other products, in this way maneuvering the customers. But not all items were displayed according to the manager who suggested that 10% were not used to allow other unpopular games to be made accessible for a segmented market. Store size was also not big enough to cater all the products that is why it is critical to determine which items need to be displayed. This determination is also done by the upper management on the basis of the location and size of the store. Though one troubled factor for the manager was that a booklet was the foundation of setting up a display (Source: POP Display) Similarly trade allowance was used as means of offering negotiated price for the customers to feel tempted to purchase the product as such lucrative offers are not available every other time. Another way how trade allowance helped was that sales personnel made good efforts to sell their respective products. Surprisingly the manager hardly knew about the practicality in applying trade allowance theory on GameShop store as upper management simply kept this information to themself. In this way the manager really felt frustrated on the inability to understand how and why certain reasons are considered acceptable to the upper management while he might disagree. (Source: Trade Allowance) As I see lack of ownership has really got the level of performance below, which could really be avoided to enhance sales as more and more products would have been presented in a better manner. Works Cited 1. Principles of Marketing (POP Display). 13 October 2008 . 2. Principles of Marketing (Trade Allowance). 13 October 2008 .