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Dump Bins
Darren GilbertFeb 4, 2019 5:05:37 PM8 min read

5 Ways to Make Use of Dump Bins In Your Store

As far as retail displays go, dump bins aren’t necessarily the first you’d consider. There are plenty of others worth contemplating before turning to them. Shelf talkers, Gondola Ends and Baskets are a few examples. However, that doesn’t mean dump displays are not insignificant. Regardless of their reputation as displays to dump unwanted merchandise, they are worth your time.

That’s especially true if you’re an everyday retailer appealing to a broad target market. A dump display provides you with so many different options. Instead of treating these displays as dumping bins, you need to see them for what they are: golden opportunities for you to capitalise.

Dump Bins Impulse Buying

1. Use dump bins to increase the basket size of your customers

The first way to make better use of your dump bins is to use them to entice your customers to include additional products to their baskets. In other words, encourage impulse buying.

Since you would often place an item on promotion in these displays, enticing shoppers to make additional purchases is not a difficult a task. While many of your customers visit a store with an idea of what they want to buy, using dump bins to present your products allows you to persuade shoppers to consider purchasing an item not on their list.

Let’s say, for example, that you’re a food retailer. You could place chips or crisps in your dump bins, and you’d do that to appeal to families shopping in your store. They may enter shopping for the basics, but if you’ve placed your dump displays throughout your store, they’ll eventually come across them.

In truth, considering their size, these displays are difficult to avoid while shopping. That works in your favour. Even if customers are not looking for the product, they are likely to see what is inside the bin. It could spark a memory that they might need the product you’ve placed there, and so they'll add it to their basket.

The chances of this happening are that much more likely if you locate them close to high traffic areas or spaces where your customers linger. That could be your till points, at the end of gondola runs or even in the walkways.

Regardless of where you position them in-store, you do need to ensure that they don’t frustrate or negatively affect the overall shopping experience.

Dump Bins Unsold Stock

2. Use dump displays to get rid of any unsold stock

There is a good reason why you describe dump displays as such. It’s because you use them primarily to hold larger amounts of merchandise. That makes them ideal to get rid of unsold stock.

Since they can hold more SKUs than the average shelf without looking cluttered or messy, they also give you more options.

 

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For example, there are many cases where the stock of a particular product does not sell as well as you had initially hoped. It could be a result of many different reasons, some of which are not your fault. However, you don’t always have to send this unsold stock back to your supplier.

Instead, you can place it in a dump bin in your store at a reduced price, which goes back to our first point. Dump bins encourage impulse buying.

Moreover, you don’t need to limit yourself and only place one item in such a display. You could consider putting different products from one category in this bin or even products from multiple categories. In each case, it is at least worth checking yourself to ensure the items in this display make logical sense to your customers.

If you’re a pharmacy retailer, for such a display, it wouldn’t make sense to place Pet Toys and Chips in the same bin. However, you could put soap and toiletry items together.

Dump Bins Promotions

3. Use dump bins to promote any products on special

By their nature, dump bins grab the attention of shoppers. That’s partly due to their size as well as where you place them.

With regards to where you locate them, as stated already, it’s usually in high traffic areas. That’s because in doing so all your shoppers will see what you have on offer. More than that, by placing dump bins in high traffic areas it so, you’ll expose shoppers who don’t walk down every aisle of your store to more of your products.

It’s also useful to place promotional items in these bins to attract attention because customers see ‘value’ in products displayed in this manner. That’s why these displays work so well for promotional items.

Of course, you do need to ensure that you can’t damage those items that you put on promotion. The last thing you’d want to do is place a product in the dump bin along with another, and it breaks and becomes unsellable. Thus, it’s vital to consider the item on promotion before you add it into a container.

That said, you also need to be strategic in how you approach your dump displays.

We will touch on how you can use your dump displays strategically in more detail in the next point. We’ll also mention those areas where you should place them (and a few where they would become unprofitable).

For now, it’s worth pointing out that it’s never a good idea to just put them anywhere in your store without much thought. After all, while all of the points in this piece spotlight how you can use your dump displays effectively, they all point to one goal: to increase your customer’s basket size.

It also helps if you add an interactive element where customers can get up and close with the product. In this case, it’s worth including a promotional stand. Then, when customers walk past the dump displays holding the product they’re recently seen demonstrated, they won’t hesitate as much to put it into their basket.

Dump Bins Strategic

4. Use you dump displays strategically throughout your store

When it comes to achieving long-term success in retail, it’s close to impossible to attempt anything without having some form of a strategy behind it. In reality, it is not advisable at all.

That’s because, without a strategy, you’re effectively working blind.

As for strategy and how it applies to your dump displays, here it is: by placing them strategically in your store, you can use them to pull shoppers through your store.

There is also the point that these displays can help you to keep shoppers in your store for longer. Also, since they can house more stock than your shelf, they can help you to maximise your floor space.

So, where should you place them in your store? There are a couple of areas that are best suited.

 

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For one, you can place them nearby a pay point or at the entrance of the snake aisle. While your customers wait to pay, you subconsciously encourage them to add one or two items to their basket.

Another option is to place them at the top of every aisle so that your shoppers must pass them to get to the products they do want to buy. As they return to the till point, there is every chance of them picking up an item on the way.

A third option is to place them at the entrance of your store. As shoppers come in, they’ll see an item on sale or at a reduced price. That alone can give them the impression that your products are priced lower than your competitors, for example, and they can save by shopping at your store.

Also, for any shoppers outside, it’s the first thing they’ll see when they walk past your store.

Dump Bins Cross Merchandise

5. Use dump bins to cross-merchandise products

A final way to use dump bins effectively in-store is to treat them as cross-merchandising opportunities.

Since these displays act as extra merchandising areas in your store, helping you to maximise your space, they are perfect for increasing exposure of a product or products to your customers.

If you’ve taken a strategic route, you’ll no doubt have placed them in multiple areas within your store. That, in itself, will pique the interest of shoppers who could first test your product in an area and then when they see it again, place it in their basket.

For example, if you stock coffee and rusks/biscuits in your store, you could cross-merchandise them together in a promotional dump bin. In this case, coffee sachets might be better than tins. Furthermore, you could place the same bin besides the aisle where you find your biscuits and snacks as well as your aisle for coffees and teas.

If shoppers didn’t think they needed coffee the first time they saw the bin, they might change their minds by the time they see it a second of third time.

Similarly, you could even bundle these two items together and place them in a bin, thereby offering customers better value for their money. In that case, it can, quite easily, lead to a customer buying the items impulsively.

Conclusion

DotActiv Academy is DotActiv’s education portal where you can learn about all things retail and category management. From product placement and pricing strategies to merchandising techniques and the category management process, it’s there.

For more information about the various courses, visit our online store here.

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Darren Gilbert

Darren Gilbert joined in 2017 and is the content manager. He has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from the University of Stellenbosch.

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