Posted in Retail Trends,Customers,Products
Since the early 1950’s, Gondola shelving has been the workhorse of the retail industry. Gondolas are a necessity to grocers and convenience store owners but definitely not limited to them. Room and space providing, these shelving units provide convenience and are sturdy enough to stay in place for years. Despite their apparent permanence, gondolas are easy to take down and set up again, allowing you to change your store’s look at will.
Is Gondola Shelving for You?
Choosing the best gondola system for your store can be a challenging process because there are so many available configurations. When choosing gondola you must factor in decisions such as height, width, length, and color. Don’t forget to consider the construction material and center wall configuration. They’re free-standing and their backing may be solid, slatwall, or pegboard. Each configuration providing many options for displaying a wide-variety of products.
How Versatile is Gondola Shelving?
Often constructed of steel, gondola shelving framework is very strong and durable. As a result, gondolas are capable of supporting heavy loads. Today, there are many more colors available than traditional white and almond. IDD is a stocking distributor of Madix‘s Maxi Line brand in Saharafinish. Newer gondola systems have maintained their strength despite becoming lighter in weight. No matter the size of your merchandise, gondolas are most likely able to accommodate with many different depths and moveable shelves.
How to Arrange Your Gondola Shelving
Popularly used in the center area and along spacious walls of retail shops, gondolas allow themselves to easily divide retail space into sections, creating aisles and directing customers into a specific traffic flow. This means a predetermined pattern for your shoppers giving them a view of all different sections and departments. Ideally, you want to ensure you have plenty of distance between gondolas. Especially, if you offer your customers the convenience of shopping carts and baskets. Gondola islands too closely positioned could cause harm to customers, merchandise, or your gondolas themselves. Beware of turning your traffic flow into a traffic jam!
Don’t Forget to Use Endcaps!
In addition to gondola shelving, endcaps are a huge part of what makes a great gondola display pop. When retailers need to display seasonal or “hot” items, gondola shelving endcaps are an immediate go-to. Some retailers and vendors center entire marketing campaigns around the use of endcaps in their stores. This, again, is due to the extreme versatility of gondola shelving units. You’ll see in the photo below how our sister-company, IIG, created an award-winning Bayer Pest Solution Center endcap for use in pet stores around the nation. Don’t worry, large-scale marketing campaigns aren’t always necessary to have success with your gondola shelving endcaps. In an alternate scenario – TJMaxx does a great job merchandising their winter holiday seasonal items on endcaps here.
Gondola Shelving Spotlight:
BCS Parts came to IDD needing to place a rush order to outfit their new showroom in Overland Park, KS. They serve commercial and residential mechanical contractors and commercial facility and maintenance personnel by providing HVAC parts and accessories through their vast vendor network. They had an in-house date which was a few weeks shorter than our typical production lead time. Madix helped us secure this order by moving it up in their production cycle. Thank you Madix! Upon receiving the gondola shelving, the BCS team let us know how happy they were with the quality and the ease to assemble. As shown in the slide show below, they opted for our Maxi Line with solid back panels and standard gray finish.