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Interrupting the Shopping Autopilot With Aisle Violators

aisle violators

Customers have a lot to look at when they’re browsing store aisles, from advertisements and promotions to the seemingly endless selection of products. It can be difficult to get noticed in a brick-and-mortar environment, but aisle violators can help you grab customers’ attention.

Aisle violators have many uses and can be specific to your brand or advertise certain types of products. Keep reading to learn how aisle violators can maximize the customers’ exposure to your products.

Table of Contents:

What is an Aisle Violator?

When you walk down an aisle, you may notice a long, rectangular sign hanging perpendicular to the aisle. This is an aisle violator, and it’s a sales secret good businesses have been using for years. Aisle violators are designed to draw the attention of customers who walk down the aisles.

Some of the best designs have large-scale pictures of the items and switch up the color and texture of the sign. There’s usually also room to further convince your customers to put your product in their carts by listing other eye-catching marketing and value prop details such as benefits, ingredients or the story of the product or company.

With names like aisle violator, invader, breaker or interrupter, it’s clear what this sign’s purpose is — to stop customers in their tracks, which can be especially helpful for catching the attention of shoppers on autopilot. An aisle violator is also called a shelf flag, which is perhaps the term that fits it best. A violator is located in a shopping aisle, making it highly visible.

These signs are often double-sided so that customers will see them in both directions. You can also use the double-sided feature to print the same message in more than one language. Aisle violators make an impact with customers, serving as a good option for increasing the attention certain products receive.

The Benefits of Aisle Violators

Aisle violator placement can increase your sales, which is the benefit that most companies focus on. Below are some of their greatest advantages:

1. Superior Organization

Aisle violators help categorize the shelves in regions where customers are most likely to find the specific products they’re looking for. They enhance the store’s organization and flow. Customers who are looking for something will see the aisle violators hanging up and go immediately to the right section of the aisle. This is preferable to the customers going up and down every aisle until they find the products they need.

2. Practical Attention-Grabbing

Aisle violators are designed to acquire the attention of passing customers as they browse for products. Several kinds of signage hang in front of the products, like wobblers or danglers. They make good use of the amount of space available to draw as much attention as possible.

3. Enhanced Product Appeal

Your customers will subconsciously feel that the products displayed on the aisle violators are more important than the items lacking signage because they stand out. Aisle violators can have a sharp appearance using your company’s colors and logo. You can emphasize your products with printing that reflects their best characteristics.

Aisle Violator Display

4. Communication With Customers

You can print a message to customers on your aisle violators, which is like talking to them directly about the available products. Include anything that will influence them, such as labeling products as new or referencing the current discount opportunities.

4. Variety

Aisle violators come in several styles, so you can order based on what your team predicts will work the most effectively. You can also use more than one type of aisle violator to draw attention to a collection of products. These signs are very much universal and will work for any product, yet you can choose custom signage of different shapes and sizes for any project.

5. Improved Shopping Speed and Flow

Customers prefer to see labeling when they’re shopping at a brick-and-mortar store. Without direction, they’re unsure which aisles to browse and spend more time looking for what they need.

Most customers want to find the items on their lists and leave the store as quickly as possible. Customers who window shop and take their time are rarer, especially in the fast-paced economy of today. Adding aisle violators improves the flow of stores by making specific sections easy to identify. Without these markers, customers will take longer to find your products.

6. Competitive Advantage

Using aisle violators to highlight your products can give your company an advantage over a rival company selling the same type of products. Your items will stand out and appear the most important on the shelves with your company’s own signage. The violators are like bookmarks that customers are naturally inclined to go to.

Your competitors are probably already using aisle violators given their popularity. Stay ahead of the competition by getting your own set for retail locations.

7. Quality Appearance

Aisle violators are more than eye-catching — they show customers you care about the quality of your products and are willing to put effort into your presentation. The material quality of the violators themselves is also important when you install them. You want the customers to be able to easily identify and read the messages.

It’s essential to choose a partner who can manufacture high-quality shelf signage. Look for a reputable company like Creative Displays Now with extensive experience in this area.

What Should You Know Before You Use Aisle Violators?

Make sure you check with your retail partners about what they recommend for their shelf signage. You should avoid using aisle violators in stores without channel-based shelving systems. Violators will only work at these retail locations with the use of tape.

The types of aisle violators include:

  • Wobbler: This type of sign is attached at a high anchor point and dangles over the products on a shelf.
  • Channel strip: This signage lines the store shelves below certain products. They’re either stuck or locked into place.
  • Shelf sign: Also called a shelf talker, this small sign attaches to a shelf.
  • Dividers: This signage goes between products and allows for superior organization.

Placement Is Everything

For maximum influence, be sure to place the signs in the busiest areas of your store — in the checkout lines, on the most popular aisles and even close to escalators or stairs. Here, your customers are more likely to “stop and shop,” especially if you tack on a sale or pull-off coupon to sweeten the pot. A smaller packet of a sample of the product, placed in a small basket or divider on your store aisle signs, can also encourage sales.

It’s recommended to place the majority of your aisle violators at the end of each aisle, as customers have been subconsciously trained by years of shopping to look for them there.

Don’t Look Up

You might be surprised to learn that shoppers don’t usually look upward toward aisle descriptions anymore — instead, they look down the aisle in the hopes of finding what they’re looking for. This is why aisle signs are so crucial to your store’s success — if your customers don’t immediately see what they want, they may just walk right by or go somewhere else.

Give your shoppers an instant visual clue by having large signs sticking out of the shelves themselves, instead of making your shoppers scan tiny text on list signs hanging from the ceiling.

Order Custom Product Displays From Creative Displays Now

There are too many effective types of retail signs and displays for you to get stuck using the same ones year after year. If you haven’t updated your in-store advertising in a while, we invite you to read more of our blog or get in touch with us to reevaluate your strategy.

Creative Displays Now can design and manufacture a range of displays for a variety of products. Elevate your brand with high-quality labeling and packaging made from sustainable materials. If you’re interested in aisle violators or another product, contact us to get a quote on retail signage for your company today.

Posted in In-Store Display Tactics, Retail Display Examples
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