Patent Application
20090308084
The merchandising of products at retail outlets can be complicated and expensive. It oftentimes requires high visibility as well as convenience to trigger a purchase, particularly purchase of an impulse type product. This is particularly true in convenience stores where people tend to spend less time making purchasing decisions since they are typically only in need of a few items and there is a perceived need to reduce the time spent in such stores. In some areas of various convenience stores little time can be spent by a customer, particularly at a service or checkout counter, because of other people standing in line trying to pay and leave the premises. It is well known that to merchandise certain products, their physical location within the store can be an important criteria. Stores are known to charge manufacturers for shelf space in the store to display and sell product, charging a premium for better locations. Additionally, not only is the physical location on the store's floor plan important, but the height at which the products are displayed can also be important to further enhance visibility and focus attention on such products. In this regard, end-of-isle displays and point of purchase displays enhance sales and help to trigger impulse buying.
For certain items such as chilled beverages, it is highly desirable to have those items displayed in a manner which will focus attention on such products and which will generate more convenient purchasing activities including impulse buying. One primary location for impulse items is at the checkout counter. Typically, display racks, end-of-isle displays and barrel type ice coolers are provided at checkout counters for the merchandising of certain items including chilled beverages and these point of purchase displays are effective in selling products. In grocery stores that utilize conveyor type checkout counters, it is relatively easy to provide display shelf arrangements adjacent to the entry of the checkout aisle because of the direction of customer movement relative to the counter. However, at convenience stores, the checkout counter is usually a counter arrangement that can be L-shaped, U-shaped, V-shaped, rounded or linear and the ability to place display shelves at or adjacent to the counter is limited because of the way pedestrian traffic flows to and away from such counters. It is also important to keep such display shelves and other point of purchase displays out of the normal pathways of customer movement to prevent people from tripping over or running into such displays. Traditionally, such point of purchase displays at checkout areas are for dry goods or shelf stable goods that require nothing more than shelf space, although barrel type ice coolers are occasionally used adjacent to such counters where space permits. Oftentimes, at convenience stores, display racks are set on top of the checkout counter for the display and merchandising of items at the display counter thereby limiting such sales usually to dry goods only.
The ability to merchandise products utilizing refrigeration, for example, chilled soft drinks and other chilled beverages, has been traditionally relegated to an area of the store requiring a customer to make a lengthy and time consuming trip to another location in the store for obtaining such products, coming back to the checkout counter, and then checking out. Such display cases are typically walk-in type coolers and are relatively large and provide access from a back side of the cooler for filling or restocking. These coolers oftentimes have shelves inclined downwardly and forwardly so that the products gravity feed from the back to the front of the shelf allowing easy restocking from the back and easy consumer access from the front. Stores are constructed to accommodate such walk-in type coolers by having an entire room located on the backside of such cooler display cases for storing and restocking product thereby limiting their use to a wall area of the store or building.
It is also recognized that over 50% of convenience store consumers never make it passed the checkout counter. They are there to pay for gas, or to purchase tobacco products or lottery tickets. This is a target audience typically missed with respect to the sale of impulse type items.
There is also a careful balance in positioning products throughout the merchandising space of a store. If too much product is located adjacent to a checkout area, people will come to the checkout counter, spend time shopping thereby blocking effective use of the checkout counter for people to pay and leave.
It would therefore be desirable to have high margin and high sales items including impulse items such as chilled beverages displayed at the checkout counter to increase impulse buying and to provide another opportunity to sell product. It would also be desirable to provide a checkout counter merchandising unit that is integrated into the counter and that can be easily accessed for both the sale of items and the replenishment of sold items.
The present invention involves the provision of a cooler construction that is integrated into a counter at a retail outlet. The counter has a customer side and an attendant side, and a generally upwardly facing top surface. A storage compartment is provided that has at least one wall defining the compartment with at least one transparent window positioned for viewing contents in the compartment by a person positioned on the customer side of the counter. This transparent window can be associated with the top surface of the counter, with the customer side of the counter, or both. A refrigeration unit is associated with the storage compartment and is operable to effect cooling of the compartment and the contents therein, although the storage compartment could likewise be adapted to hold ice or other cooling means. The cooler construction includes at least one door forming at least a portion of a wall defining the storage compartment. The door is selectively movable between open and closed positions for removing product from the storage compartment. The cooler is at least substantially contained within the footprint of the counter and preferably at or adjacent the checkout area of the counter.
The present invention also involves the provision of a method of merchandising products at a retail outlet. The method includes integrating a normally closed cooler into a customer checkout counter. Product is visually displayed in the cooler to consumers. The contents of the cooler are made available to consumers for purchase at the checkout counter with the cooler being positioned at least substantially within the footprint of the counter.
Like numbers throughout the various figures designate like or similar parts and/or construction.
The reference number 1 in
As best seen in
The cooler 17 includes at least one transparent wall or a transparent portion of a wall to permit consumers or patrons to view the contents within the cooler. In one embodiment, at least a portion of the front wall, which is in the form of a door 22, and at least a portion of the top wall 24 are both transparent. While the front wall is shown as being in the form of a door, it is to be understood that the top wall 24 could, instead or in addition, likewise include a door. As illustrated, the door 22 is hinged and may include a return mechanism to close the door 22 upon release by a consumer such as by means of a counterweight mechanism, a spring, a gas spring, or other biasing means. The door 22 could also be a sliding door with a return mechanism. Preferably, the transparent windows are made of a suitable break resistant plastic, glass or other see-through material.
The cooler 17 is preferably modularized for installation, exchange or service convenience and can fit into an opening in the base unit 11. The cooler 17 can be held in place by frictional engagement with the floor. Suitable fastening devices may be provided to provide a releasable connection between the cooler 17 and the docking base unit 11. The cooler 17 has a lower portion of a cabinet 26 that can contain the refrigeration unit (not shown). The refrigeration unit can be any suitable electrically powered refrigeration unit. The cabinet 26 can be vented at 27 for flow of air into and out of the cabinet 26. The cooler 17 can be provided with suitable internal organizing racks 28 (
In one embodiment, and as illustrated, the cooler 17 has a door 22 mounted on the front vertical face 31 of the cooler providing an opening into the cooler 17 through the recess 20 of the base 11. The top surface 15 is positioned at a height relative to the door 22 so that the door may be hinged downwardly with the surface 15 acting as a door stop. In the event the door 22 is not configured for automatic return, the door 22 can be released to rest on the surface 15. Preferably, the door 22 is hinged at a bottom edge 34 so that the door pivots downwardly. The height H of the door 22 is preferably approximately equal to or less than the depth D of the surface 15 so that the door 22 does not project outwardly in front of the base 11 when open. In an alternate embodiment, the wall or a portion of the wall 24 may include an access door which could be either hingedly mounted or slidably mounted for movement between open and closed positions. It is also anticipated that the door 22 could be slidably mounted on the front face 31 of the cabinet 26 so as to be accessible from the recessed surface 15, or the recessed surface 15 could be eliminated and the slidably mounted door could lie flush with the front wall 18 of the counter. Other door configurations are likewise recognized and anticipated.
The cooler 17 may be provided with a rear door 36 forming one wall of the cooler storage compartment 37. A rear door 36 (
It is recognized and anticipated that the overall configuration of the cooler 17 and its corresponding base 11 can take on a wide variety of different sizes, shapes and configurations, and the recess surface 15 and the cooler door 22 can likewise take on a wide variety of different shapes and configurations including eliminating the recess surface 15. The same is likewise true with respect to the interior organization of the cooler compartment 37 including the positioning and location of any internal organizing racks and dividers such as the racks 28 illustrated in
In addition, it is likewise recognized and anticipated that the entire merchandising unit 2 as illustrated in
In a third embodiment as shown in
Thus, there has been shown and described several embodiments of a novel invention. As is evident from the foregoing description, certain aspects of the present invention are not limited by the particular details of the examples illustrated herein, and it is therefore contemplated that other modifications and applications, or equivalents thereof, will occur to those skilled in the art. The terms “having” and “including” and similar terms as used in the foregoing specification are used in the sense of “optional” or “may include” and not as “required”. Many changes, modifications, variations and other uses and applications of the present invention will, however, become apparent to those skilled in the art after considering the specification and the accompanying drawings. All such changes, modifications, variations and other uses and applications which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention are deemed to be covered by the invention which is limited only by the claims which follow.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61060958 | Jun 2008 | US |
