Getting the Point

Three months into business as president of distributorship AG PrintPromo Solutions, Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Anup Gupta was in the running to supply a major beverage company with 90,000 instant redeemable coupons. The company wanted the coupons to fit on 2-liter bottles without covering the brand name. "They didn't say, 'Just do it,'" Gupta says. "They wanted me to come up with ideas for it."

Gupta designed a 4 x 5-inch coupon in four colors, with perforations 1/4 of an inch from the left and right edges. In addition to requiring a special design, the client "needed it done in two and a half weeks, and normally that takes four weeks," Gupta says. He promised he could hit the deadline-and he won the account. According to Gupta, the client was surprised and pleased with the project's low cost.

Gupta's story reflects a main advantage of the point-of-purchase market: a growing demand for value-added services. "It's become more and more the responsibility of the broker to do more of the work," says Joe Tedesco, president of Stamar Packaging Inc., a Chicago distributorship. Ten percent of his sales consist of custom retail packaging and displays. Recently, Stamar created a Christmas tree-shaped floor display that held gifts produced by a Christian company. The display was constructed with three pieces of corrugated cardboard that were floodcoated green, a multicolored star, hang hooks, and red trays to hold books and stuffed animals. Tedesco also arranged for the shipping.

"Point-of-purchase material is definitely in an upswing market," says Wilford Downs Wrightson III, president of Packaging & Design Co., a distributorship in Tucker, Ga. "The reason is more and more stores are going to no clerks or people who don't have a clue about the product....As a result, you better have packaging that attracts the consumer." Wrightson served as marketing manager at packaging manufacturer Smurfit-Stone (formerly Container Corp. of America) for 21 years before launching a distributorship in 1984. Point-of-purchase displays account for 48 percent of his sales.

Add-on sales and market growth aren't the only advantages of selling point-of-purchase products. Distributors say clients tend to be loyal and not very price-conscious. "[With one account] in the beginning there was a lot of competition," Gupta says. "Once I proved my quality and service, there wasn't much." As his comment might imply, though, there's also a challenge when offering point-of-purchase products: no room for error. "[The products] are things everybody sees," Gupta says. "They're out in the public. So make sure you do a good job so they get compliments from their clients."

Distributors who can think like marketers, design like engineers and deliver like line operators often find lucrative sales in the point-of-purchase market. Here are some tips from distributors who have broken into the market successfully:

• Know commercial printing. Learn about 4-color processing, color registration and press checks. Gupta says knowledge he gained during his 5 1/2 years working at a commercial print shop proved invaluable to his point-of-purchase sales.
  
  
• Target the right clients. Business-to-business firms typically don't market as much as retailers. Tedesco targets companies that sell tools, lamps, pictures, books and magazines. He diversifies his client base according to type of retail product, so if one undergoes a market slump, Stamar Packaging is not dramatically impacted. Wrightson targets large clients in the film and music industries, which often use floor displays to highlight products. He advises asking questions to determine the best sales contact. "It depends upon the company," Wrightson says. "[In] some companies, purchasing doesn't know what's going on [with] marketing. At others, purchasing is heavily involved."
  
  
• Think like a marketer. Wrightson tells the story of two men chased by a bear: "Do you think you can run faster than the bear?" the first man asks. The second man replies, "I figure I just have to run faster than you." In point-of-purchase sales, Wrightson says, the bear is clients' national competition. "Don't worry about the bear, just your local competition," he says.
  
  Study the store environment and think of ways to make products stand out. Wrightson recently provided EMI Capitol Records with 11,000 10-count, 5-color CD displays to help market a limited holiday music mix in 350 Kohl's stores. The marketing approach included eye-level placement, support from sales representatives and high repetition. "[The client] put these on the counters by the cash registers at the store," Wrightson says. "They were just everywhere." EMI gained product visibility and sold 500,000 CDs.
  
  
• Choose designers wisely. Your capabilities and client base will determine how you handle point-of-purchase design. Tedesco teamed with Kenneth Larney at QBF Group Inc., a distributorship in Tinley Park, Ill. "They're very hands on," he says. "They don't try to overdesign something....They do a very good job of listening and understanding what the customer's needs are." Because Tedesco's client base is nearby, he and QBF representatives meet his clients face-to-face to discuss artwork. In contrast, Wrightson's customers are scattered nationwide. He encourages clients to choose their own designers. "We strongly recommend that they work with an artist who's close to them," he says.
  
  
• Emphasize timeliness. According to Gupta, clients' concerns tend to come in this order: timing, quality, service and price. "[In this market], people will lose jobs if they don't deliver on time," he says. One Thursday, Gupta received a call at 11 a.m. for 81/2 x 11-inch, 4-color gloss paper inserts for antibacterial soap shipments. The client wanted to know if Gupta could deliver 6,000 of them to Texas by Tuesday. "Then he asked me the price," Gupta says. Gupta promotes his firm's responsibility for timeliness and quality by placing a tagline on his letterhead that reads, "Reliable and Personalized Service."
  
  
• Know your materials. According to Wrightson, corrugated packaging is replacing many folding cartons. It's sturdy, and technological innovations allow it to be cut and printed more precisely than in the past. Wrightson's distributorship offers tooling for more than 100 corrugated displays and two warehouses of stock items in colors including red, black and white. He charges more for the popular red and black displays. "When we sell [white] displays, we also try to upsell them 4-color process, printers and headers," he says. (See "Making Waves with Corrugated Packaging" on page 65.)
  
  
• Illustrate your point. Provide marketers with highly visual examples of your products. Wrightson's Web site includes a full index of past projects, specs and special sales. Tedesco sometimes faxes spec sheets to potential clients to help them choose types of displays.
  
  
• Ask about use. Ask your clients about the space constraints of the store, whether it's likely that water could be spilled on the display and other environmental concerns. Tedesco suggests walking the store floor. "You see the positives and negatives of a display," Tedesco says. "An example would be you have a heavy product. How long is it going to sit on the floor?" Your observations may help you select the ideal material, shape, size and ink.
  
  
• Have customers sign off on proofs. "If they don't, you're going to get moaning and weeping and gnashing of teeth, and it's just not worth it," Wrightson says. When clients can't do a press check in person, he overnights a Matchprint proof (a proof of color separations, shown on a single piece of proofing color). Wrightson keeps a copy so when the client approves it, he can send it directly to the printer.
  
  
• Never take your client for granted. "I just got back from a trade show," Wrightson says. "A guy I've been selling to for four or five years walked by my booth, and I said, 'Wait a minute! Come here. Let me show you this and this,'" Wrightson says. Pleased with the personal attention and creative ideas, the client ordered some of Wrightson's new products.

Point-of-purchase sales might require knowledge of new products, but tried-and-true sales techniques remain effective. When a client compliments Gupta about one of his projects, he follows up by soliciting a letter of praise, which he later shows to prospects. "That gives them some peace of mind," he says. "They think, 'Okay, he's done some for big names.'" Point-of-purchase sales should pique distributors' interest, not intimidate. "As you gain more experience, you start to feel more comfortable with it," Gupta says.

Rita Tiefert is an assistant editor at FORM Magazine. Email her your comments at rtiefert@dmia.org.

Making Waves with Corrugated Packaging
One of the latest materials to make a splash in the point-of-purchase market is corrugated packaging. It consists of a layer of fluted paper sandwiched between two flat outer liners. Wilford Downs Wrightson III, president of Packaging & Design Co., a distributorship in Tucker, Ga., says retailers such as diaper manufacturers and cereal companies are abandoning folding cartons in favor of corrugated. Joe Tedesco, president of Chicago distributorship Stamar Packaging Inc., also relies on corrugated packaging for many of his point-of-purchase products, which account for 10 percent of his sales.

Corrugated packaging wasn't always this popular. Twenty years ago, marketers turned up their noses at it, says Wrightson. "If you run your hands over it," he says, "you can feel little highs and lows, and that affects the quality of the print." Manufacturers also had difficulty cutting the fluted layer to match the size of the outer liners.

But now, Wrightson says, "The corrugator can cut exactly where it's supposed to cut every time, using electronic eyes." Ink registration is more reliable. And new micro-corrugated packaging features fluting so tight, the packaging itself can be offset printed. In 1999, Innovative Packaging Corp., Milwaukee, Wis., filed a patent for micro-corrugated packaging with a thickness of just .04 inches (40 mils).

To learn more about corrugated packaging innovations, search the Trademark Office's Web Patent Database at www.uspto.gov/patft/ using the keywords "corrugated cardboard."