Shelf strips and other retail POP for when all you get is the shelf

I have been in the POP business for close to 4 years, and the first question I ask before talking about pieces is what the store lets you put in. The answer bounds the whole campaign before the budget or the material does. This guide is for the brand that only has its spot on the shelf.

Bellto is an AI agent that designs your brand's POP. Every example in this guide was designed by Bellto for Huelli, a fictional dog snack brand I use on this blog.

What does the store let you put in?

There are three situations, and each one opens a different family of pieces.

If a brand only has shelf space, pitching it a floor unit wastes everyone's time. And the other way round, a brand that gets a spot and only orders shelf strips leaves visibility on the table. In the summer sunscreen launch case for pharmacies, the first two happen at once, and the campaign puts shelf pieces in every pharmacy and a floor display only where there is room.

This is what a shelf looks like when no brand adds anything. The cans stand apart only by the color of each pack, and the shelf edge carries just the rail and the prices. Shelf POP works right there, on that edge, in the gap between shelves and above the section.

The four shelf POP pieces

To show them, here is Huelli's brief. It is the brief of a brand launching a product with a retailer that only gives it the shelf.

BriefHuellifictional brand

Product

natural dog snacks, 200 g bag

Channel

supermarket pet aisle

Stores

about 400 supermarkets

Dates

September to December

Space

shelf material only, no floor displays and no endcaps

Goal

make the section visible from the aisle and make it clear the snacks are new

Artwork

the brand's turquoise, yellow and illustrated dogs

Installation

the retailer's shelf stockers

All four pieces fit that brief, and each one does a different job. Here are three of them on the same shelf.

The strip keeps order, the banner strip announces, and the shelf frame turns a row of bags into one piece. The wobbler, the fourth one, is the one that moves. None of them holds product, because on the shelf the product is already sitting there.

The shelf edge strip, on the front of the shelf

Shelf edge stripHuelli shelf strip

Material

board, PVC or PET

Where

along the edge of the snack shelf

Mounting

slid into the price rail or clipped over the edge

What it does

marks where Huelli starts and ends on the shelf

The shelf edge strip is the quietest piece on the shelf. It runs along the edge, marks the brand's block and takes no space from the product, which stands behind and above it. On Huelli's, the turquoise of the pack carries on along the edge and the words “Snacks naturales” read from the aisle.

From one strip to the next, what changes most is how it is held. If it goes in the rail, the rail sets its height. If it clips over the edge, the shelf thickness does. Both come down to one figure the retailer has, and it belongs in the brief.

The banner strip, above the section

Shelf banner stripHuelli banner strip

Material

board

Where

above Huelli's section, across the shelf

Mounting

on the edge of the top shelf or above the section

What it does

announces the brand and the new product from a distance

A banner strip is more graphics than structure. It is a long band that runs along a shelf or crowns a section, with no profile and no slot. It is the piece seen from the furthest away, which is why Huelli's carries the big logo, the brand's dogs and the full line, “Snacks naturales para perro”.

Huelli's brief asked for the section to be visible from the aisle, and that line is what calls for a banner strip. If the goal were only to keep the shelf tidy, the edge strip would be enough.

The shelf frame, around one shelf

Shelf frameHuelli shelf frame

Material

board

Where

around the row of snacks on one shelf only

Mounting

resting on the shelf edge

What it does

makes every bag read as one piece

A shelf frame goes around the product on a single shelf, with a lower bar on the edge, a short upright at each end and an upper bar tucked under the next shelf. Shoppers see the product through it, and it never carries it. It is what makes six or twelve identical bags read as one block instead of six or twelve loose bags.

It is also the piece most often mixed up with others. If it dresses a whole bay of shelving, it is a full-bay shelf kit. If it only sits on top, it is a header panel. And if it only covers the edge, it is a shelf strip. When you order one, say “shelf frame for one shelf”, in exactly those words.

The wobbler, the piece that moves

A wobbler is a small card hanging from a flexible arm hooked onto the shelf edge, in front of the product. It faces the shopper and sways when someone walks past, and that movement is what stops the eye. For Huelli, Bellto came back with two versions.

The bone says the product is new, which was the other half of the brief's goal. The circle says why to buy it. For a launch, I would take the bone. Both versions stay saved in the piece, so the one you do not pick is not lost.

WobblerHuelli wobbler

Material

board card on a flexible PET arm

Where

on the edge of the snack shelf, in front of the bags

Mounting

the arm hooks onto the shelf edge or the price rail

What it does

stops the eye and says the snacks are new

In store, many wobblers get called stoppers or shelf talkers. They are different pieces, because a shelf talker is rigid and sticks out perpendicular to the shelf, into the aisle. Order a shelf talker when you want a wobbler and something else will turn up.

How to order shelf POP

Shelf POP is small and flat, so it tends to get ordered with less information than a display. But it goes to many stores at once, and every missing detail gets multiplied by all of them. This is what the brief has to carry.

With that information, a manufacturer can quote without coming back to you. Without it, the quote comes with assumptions that someone has to correct later.

What Bellto does with shelf POP

Bellto knows more than 55 point of sale materials by name. Call it whatever your team calls it, shelf strip, shelf edger or regleta, and Bellto knows which piece you mean, where it goes on the shelf and how it is held. With the campaign brief, it creates every piece with your product, and every piece has its own spec sheet.

Shelf pieces are flat, and what the manufacturer needs from them is the artwork. Bellto splits the piece's design into its panels, in 4K, so your team reviews it next to the concept, and once you approve it, exports it as vectors in PNG, SVG, PDF or EPS. Then it recommends manufacturers for each piece from the more than 300 in its directory, with the reason for each one, and the job only reaches the ones you pick.

I am building Bellto now. The waitlist is open to any brand, and I will soon start the first real campaigns with brands on the list, from start to finish. It opens by invitation, in small groups, with no card required.