Retail Report: Merchandising a Nail Care Line
Orly International boxes up its nail care line.
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorThe Orly International line is sold to nail industry professionals and is available in professional beauty supply stores. Originally, its bottles were displayed without any secondary packaging on salon and beauty store racks. Recently, however, the brand packaged its nail polish bottles in new dome-shaped cartons.
“The new carton gives our products greater visibility on shelves and allows us more space for printing product information,” says Carole Wright, Orly’s creative director. She worked on the project with Stephanie Stearns, senior graphic designer at Orly, under the direction of Jeff Pink, Orly’s CEO.
The box’s dome shape was influenced by a pantyhose box. “The slanted front mimics the curved ‘O’ of our logo. This curve appears throughout the brand’s packaging and on our merchandising displays,” Wright explains. A colored strip on the box identifies different nail product categories. The carton is a custom design of Packaging Spectrum/Advanced Paper Box.
Instead of adding a plastic film over the carton’s die-cut window, the window was left uncovered. “We didn’t want any reflection from an acetate to obscure the view of the bottle,” says Wright. Most importantly, she says, “We wanted to encourage the consumer to feel [Orly’s patented] Gripper cap [through the carton].”
The cartons were designed to fit snugly into Orly’s Nail Care Gallery point-of-purchase (POP) display. The multilevel display is designed for easy product access. It is featured in a variety of retail outlets and professional salons. “The look of our displays is crucial—it speaks for the quality of the brand,” says Wright.
Orly designs different types of POP displays for different products. “Our displays containing seasonal color collections are usually thematic chip-style displays that are used for just a few months. For permanent SKUs, such as our nail treatments, we always use the same style of display to help the consumer immediately recognize the Orly product line in stores,” explains Wright.
One of the design details that remains consistent from display to display is the brushed-silver color of the Nail Gallery. “This shade provides a neutral background to showcase our nail colors. It also coordinates well with the purple Gripper cap on our treatment products,” says Wright.
In terms of graphics, the Orly brand name is always framed by an “O” at the top of the display. The Nail Gallery was designed by Orly’s in-house marketing team and manufactured by Felbro. Orly usually offers its retail partners a few different display options. “The key is to do everything you can to always make sure your product will merchandise well in any type of environment,” says Wright.
If a store chooses not to use the Nail Gallery display, Orly’s new box still succeeds in creating enough visual appeal and branding for the line. Wright offers one last tip: “It’s important to know as much as you can about the different retail outlets where your product will be sold and to plan packaging accordingly.”