I’m slightly nervous about the title of this one because every week we sell many Traditional Pop-Up systems. Though I can never understand why. It drives me mad when the customer just wants the same thing over and over because ‘that’s what we’ve always had’. Pop-Ups are old-hat and times have moved on!
However certain things have been put in place over the last few months that threaten this status quo.
Firstly, price increases. Everything is going up but the Pop-Up system contains a lot of hardware that is manufactured abroad, which makes it very susceptible to price increases based on the strength of the pound and also shipping costs.
To give you an idea, the wholesale cost of a typical 3×3 unit has gone up by 64.4% in the last eighteen months. That's a staggering increase.
Courier costs are another nail in the Pop-Up coffin. Couriers are now volumising goods and charging for delivery based on their volumetric weight (if it’s above the actual weight).
Volumetric weight is calculated by multiplying the width, height and depth of a package in centimetres and dividing that number by 5000. That will give you the volumetric weight of a box, and that is applied even if the package is well below that weight.
Example: A standard traditional Pop-Up system has an actual weight of 28kg but is supplied with a case in a large box. That box is 98cm × 43cm × 62cm which gives it a volumetric weight of 52kg. The couriers have decreed that a single item over 50kg, volumetric or actual weight attracts a pallet rate delivery charge.
In layman's terms, that means we are charged £42.55 by the couriers for each Pop-Up we send out. The injustice of volumetric charging infuriates me beyond words, it feels like the couriers are lifting your leg and laughing at you and it's been a source of several loud profanity laden outbursts, mostly by me, in the office this year.
Luckily, and mainly in defiance of the couriers, we’ve created a Traditional Pop-Up Lite system which gets rid of the case, counter top and lights. This reduces hardware cost but more importantly, massively reduces the cost of delivery.
However, Pop-Ups are very old technology and the much better (in my opinion) and cheaper alternative is the Stretch Wall.
And I know your customer says they want a Pop-Up, but do they… really?
Have a look at our Pop-Up vs Stretch Wall document, which is unbranded like the specification sheets, so you can send these to your customer and perhaps change their mind and in the process, save me going out of mine.