This invention relates generally to the field of containers for retail products. More particularly, the present invention relates to thermoformed containers adapted for use as retail phone packages that can be shipped as a partially assembled package, and then at a later time easily customized into a finished product for retail sale under a particular brand and/or with a particular rate plan.
Inventory management in a retail store, in other words avoiding having either too much or too little stock on hand, is of great practical importance. Having too much inventory can lower profits because of the cost to maintain the inventory. Having too little inventory can lower profits when product is not available at the point of purchase to meet consumer demand.
Maintaining inventory in a retail environment is expensive for many reasons. The value of the inventory itself may be substantial for expensive consumer items like cell phones and other electronics. The time value of the money tied up in that inventory gets bigger as the value of the inventory climbs, and the longer the inventory sits on the shelf. The high cost of retail space is behind the rise of efficient sales operations like kiosks that can produce relatively high sales and inventory turnover with very little space. Inventory storage consumes space that could be used for other retail store operations, like product display, face to face sales, aisles, and a check out counter with cash register. For these and many other reasons, having too much inventory erodes profitability.
At the same time, it is extremely important for a retail store to have enough inventory available to meet immediate sale requirements. Not only must there be a sufficient quantity of inventory, that inventory must be made up of the right product mix, to be able to meet the changing needs and tastes of consumers. To effectively compete with lower-cost channels such as internet or mail order resellers, a retail store must be able to deliver a product in hand at the point of sale at the moment the consumer wants it, even if customer demand is variable and hard to predict.
The damage caused by insufficient inventory goes straight to the bottom line of a retail store operation. A customer who cannot buy because the retailer is out of stock may shop elsewhere, a loss of the immediate sale never to be made up. The lost sale is even more damaging if consumers begin to view the retailer as unreliable, eroding customer goodwill and possibly risking supplier relationships as sales drop off. Especially for hot items with a limited season or product lifetime and for products with a long lead-time to replenish inventory, insufficient stock can be a real problem for a retail store.
The problem of inventory management is particularly challenging for expensive consumer items like cell phones and similar devices like laptop or tablet computers, because these devices are continually evolving in terms of features and technology. The relatively short lifetimes of these types of products increases the risk that stock will become obsolete and see its resale value drop dramatically.
Inventory management for retail sales of cell phones and similar communications devices, in particular, is difficult for a second reason. These devices are sold with service contracts for connecting to cellular communication networks. Even within a particular cellular communication network provider, a particular make and model of a cell phone can be packaged and sold with a service contract under any of several brands owned by a particular cellular communication network provider (or under a store brand), under any of several different terms or rate plans (e.g. monthly or prepaid, data-heavy or no-data), and with packaging and documentation in multiple languages or other localization. Each brand, for example, could target a different market channel or demographic, even though they all connect to the same cellular network.
Thermoformed plastic containers are well known as inexpensive and highly customizable containers for the sale of a wide variety of products, everything from cell phones to deli meats. Thermoformed plastic containers are typically transparent and rigid, so they can give a consumer the ability to examine a product closely without actually touching it. They can be made tamper-resistant, to reduce the risk that the product could be damaged or contaminated. They are typically lightweight, and can be efficiently stored or shipped together in a nested fashion.
What is needed is a thermoformed container that is specially adapted to allow a cell phone (or similar product) to be partially packaged at one time and place, and then at a later time adapted for sale as a finished product with a particular brand (from a variety of brands or trademarks), and/or with a particular service plan (from a variety of rate plans or payment terms and/or languages) and/or with a particular language (or other localization) at a second time and place.
In a preferred embodiment, a retail package according to the invention can be made as a four piece package, comprising (front to back) an outer shell face, inner shell face, inner shell back, and outer shell back. When assembled, the package forms three separate compartments, comprising (front to back) a front compartment, a central compartment, and a rear compartment.
The front and central compartments are adapted to be filled with product components, and then partially or completely sealed to prevent removal of those contents prior to delivery to the end retail purchaser. For example, the front compartment can hold a phone, positioned and framed for retail display. The outer shell face can include perforations to facilitate opening of the front compartment by the ultimate retail purchaser. The central component can hold accessories like a charger and/or cables.
The rear compartment normally holds a book or other papers. Importantly, and unlike the front and central compartments, the rear compartment is adapted to allow easy one-way insertion of documents or other media that are specific to a particular service provider, brand, and/or service plan. After the documents or media are inserted, an outer sleeve bearing the brand etc. can be applied to assemble a finished product ready for retail sales display or delivery to the end retail purchaser.
This design enables a small stock of (relatively expensive) partially assembled packages (with cell phones in the front compartment and accessories in the central compartment, for example) combined with a a large stock of (relatively cheap) ancillary materials (such as documents, SIM cards, and outer sleeves) to provide an effective inventory adequate to meet immediate consumer demand for a large variety of different combinations of brands and/or service plans and/or languages.
Compared to keeping an inventory of fully assembled packages in the same number of combinations of cellular phone brands, service plans, and languages, this approach creates inventory depth by enabling a single phone in inventory to be flexibly sold under any of several different brands and/or service plans and/or languages, all in the same store right next to one another. This approach reduces inventory cost by allowing the brand, service plan and/or language for a particular phone to be finalized at a time and place closer to the final retail purchase, using inexpensive printed materials (instead of expensive cell phones) to provide inventory depth. Because the partially assembled packages have the cell phones and accessories sealed inside, this last-minute branding can be done with a minimum of risk that the accessories and phones will get shuffled, lost, or mismatched, as would be more likely if the compartments were not at least partially sealed to retain their contents.
A package according to the invention allows, for example, a cell phone and its accessories to be partially packaged at its point of manufacture in one country and then shipped in that form to a retail location or distribution center in a different country. In response to consumer demand, the partially packaged phone can then be adapted for sale in the destination country with a particular service provider, brand, and rate plan at the retail location or distribution center by combining the partially packaged phone with an outer sleeve and with documents or other ancillary materials inserted into the rear compartment.
The adaptation can even be done at a kiosk, whose very limited storage space would especially benefit from the highly efficient inventory management made possible by the present invention. This could be done each day at the kiosk to restock shelf inventory depleted by sales. It could also be done on demand when the customer chooses their desired provider, service plan, and/or language as the sale is completed.
In a first embodiment, the rear compartment is formed between the outer shell back and the inner shell back. A slit in a lateral side of the outer shell back provides an aperture into the rear compartment, for one-way insertion of sheet materials such as documents or other collateral material into that rear compartment. The inner shell back is adapted to receive and position documents or media (that are inserted through the slit) with a ramped corner in proximity to the slit on the outer shell back, and with upper and lower guide rails.
The ramped corner and the upper and lower guide rails help to guide and facilitate one-way placement of documentation or media into the rear compartment. As the documentation or media is inserted through the slit and up the ramped corner and into the rear compartment, the documentation or media slides between the guide rails to reach its final position in the rear compartment. As it slides during insertion, the documentation or media also moves up the ramped corner to a position away from the slit. This makes the aperture one-way, in that it is relatively easy to insert the documentation, but it is comparatively difficult to remove the documentation or media, except by rupturing the package as would be done by the ultimate purchaser.
Further, after the documentation or media is inserted into the rear compartment, the outer sleeve is normally applied. This means that tampering with or removing the contents of the package requires at least two steps to remove the sleeve and then rupture the package somehow. Depending on the nature of the goods, it might also be possible to allow the outer sleeve to be easily removed and replaced, and to make the aperture relatively large and two-way. This construction could enable inspection of the contents of the rear compartment by a prospective purchaser, while maintaining the integrity of the contents of the other compartments.
In a second embodiment, the adaptation to allow one-way insertion of documents is implemented by adapting the outer shell back to snap into place onto the inner shell back and the remainder of the partially assembled package. An interference fit with deep engagement channels between the inner shell back is used to form a relatively secure latch to partially or completely seal the rear compartment formed when the outer shell back is snapped into position on the inner shell back.
A first embodiment of the invention is a thermoformed package for retail sales comprising an outer shell face, an inner shell face, an inner shell back, and an outer shell back, with the outer shell face and the outer shell back joined together along their peripheries, with a front compartment between the outer shell face and the inner shell face and a rear compartment between the inner shell back and the outer shell back; with an aperture in the outer shell back shaped to pass a sheet material into the rear compartment.
A second embodiment of the invention is a thermoformed package for retail sales comprising an outer shell face, an inner shell face, an inner shell back with a rim; and an outer shell back with a deep channel, with the outer shell face and the inner shell back joined together along their peripheries to form a partially finished container that has a front compartment, where the rim of the inner shell back can be snapped onto the channel of the outer shell back with an interference fit that joins the rim and channel and forms a rear compartment between the inner shell back and the outer shell back.
A third embodiment of the invention is a method of late-branding cellular phones for retail sale.
Further objects, features, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
In the drawings:
d is a rear perspective view of the inner shell back of the package of
The package 10 may be made from a transparent or an opaque material such as a thermoformable plastic. However, if the package is at least partially made from a transparent material, then the product identifier 98 can be placed inside the package 10, and yet remain visible through the product identification window 99. This construction can deter or prevent a method of retail theft called “UPC switching” in which a UPC code for a less expensive product is affixed to a more expensive product in order to purchase the expensive product at a fraudulent price.
The package 10 may have a hanger loop 11 for retail display, and is preferably at least partially sealed to protect its contents along a periphery 12. The periphery 12 may terminate in a flange 13. The package 10 has a front or frontispiece 14 (best shown in
As perhaps best shown in the exploded views of
As perhaps best shown in the cross-section of
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The outer shell face 20 has a periphery that may include a rim 27 and a sealing wall 28 with one or more indentations 29, adapted for mating with complementary structures on the outer shell back 60. The indentations 29 shown in the exterior view of
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The outer shell face 120 has an exterior face 121 and an interior face 122 (not shown), with a protrusion 123 shaped and adapted to fit or hold a product framed in a recess 124 on the front surface 125. The outer shell face may include a perforation 126 adjacent to the rim 127, sealing wall 128, and peripheral flange 131. The sealing wall 128 includes one or more indentations 129 which form bumps 130 on the inside surface of the sealing wall 128 for mating with complementary structures on the outer shell back 160. The outer shell face has a top edge 132, a right edge 133, a bottom edge 134, and a left edge 135.
The inner shell face 140 has an exterior face 141 and an interior face 142 (not shown), with a recess 143 shaped and positioned to receive the recess 124 in the outer shell face 120. The inner shell face 140 includes a front surface 144, a top side wall 145, a right side wall 146, a bottom side wall 147, and a left side wall 148, all terminating in a peripheral edge 149.
The inner shell back 150 has an exterior face 151, and an interior face 152, with a top side wall 153, a right side wall 154, a bottom side wall 155, and a left side wall 156, all terminating in a peripheral edge 259 and peripheral flange 171. The inner shell back 150 may also include a book receptacle 157, for example to hold a book or other media, and an identification area 158 for placement of product identifiers 198 or other information about the product, such as serial numbers, radio frequency identification tags, bar codes, or a UPC on either the interior face 152 or exterior face 151. The inner shell back 150 may include indentations 170 that extend into a deep mating channel 173. The inner shell back 150 may also include a notch 172, as perhaps best shown in
The outer shell back 160 has an exterior face 161, and an interior face 162, with a ridge 163 configured and positioned to mate with the notch 172 of the inner shell back 150. The outer shell back 160 includes a top side wall 164, a right side wall 165, a bottom side wall 166, and a left side wall 167, each terminating in a rim 168, sealing wall 169, peripheral flange 271, and peripheral edge 279.
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In the package 110, both the outer shell face 120 and the outer shell back 160 have perforations 126 for easy-open. As perhaps best shown in
While the exemplary packages 10 and 110 each comprise four separate pieces (outer shell face, inner shell face, inner shell back, outer shell back), this is not required and a different number of separate pieces could be used. For example, the outer shell face and outer shell back could be joined by a hinge into a unitary “clamshell”. The inner shell face and inner shell back, or some other combination of pieces, could similarly be joined.
While the exemplary package 10 includes three compartments (front compartment 80, central compartment 82, rear compartment 84), this is not required and a greater or fewer number of compartments could be used. For example, a compartment could be divided to form a different number of compartments for particular applications. The package as a whole or the individual compartments could be different sizes and/or shapes. Instead of four separate pieces to form a package with three separate compartments, three separate pieces could be used to form a package with two separate compartments or greater number of pieces could be used to form a package with more compartments.
The components of the packages 10 and 110 are preferably made using thermoforming methods, from a suitable thermoformable material, such as a thermoformable plastic such as oriented polystyrene (OPS), talc-filled polypropylene (TFPP), polypropylene (PP), high impact polystyrene (HIPS), polyethylene terepthalate (PET), amorphous PET (APET), crystalline polyethylene (CPET) polystyrene copolymer blends, styrene block copolymer blends, and the like. The material is not necessarily homogeneous, but may be, for example, a laminate, co-extruded material, or multilayer material. In an appropriate case, one or more of these components could also be made of different formable, molded, or folded materials, for example metal, foil, or a cardboard or paper sheet material that is or could be recycled instead of, or in combination with, thermoformable plastic.
The component pieces forming the package 10 may be made of different materials. For example, the outer shell face 20 and outer shell back 60 may be made of transparent material to allow viewing of the contents of the front compartment 80 and the rear compartment 84. The inner shell face 40 and inner shell back 50 may be made of opaque material to obscure the contents of the central compartment 82.
While the packages 10 and 110 have been described in context of consumer electronic sales, this is not required and the packages could be used for other purposes. For example, a package according to the invention could be used for food products, with the front and/or central compartments holding non-perishable or perishable food items, and the rear compartment holding a different food or other meal-related materials. The rear compartment could also hold a removable hot or cold pack, either passive or chemically activated.
It is understood that the invention is not confined to the embodiments set forth herein as illustrative, but embraces all such forms thereof that come within the scope of the following claims.
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