GB2288596A - Merchandising shelf and pusher - Google Patents

Abstract

An inclined shelf 2 for the merchandise has an upstanding front wall 3. The product 7 to be dispensed is urged forwardly along the shelf by pusher 5 having a base 10 to support product 7 thereon. The length of the base 10 is preferably up to 30% of the total depth of the shelf 2 to provide the pusher 5 with sufficient weight to urge the column of product 7 towards the front of the shelf 2 when the foremost product 7a is removed therefrom. The pusher is L-shaped with no sides or front walls and includes roller means on its undersurface to encourage it to slide down the shelf 2, or may have a P.T.F.E slidway. <IMAGE>

Description

GRAVITY FEED MBRCHANDISING APPARATUS AND PUSHER THEREFOR The present invention relates to a gravity feed merchandising apparatus and pusher therefor for use on shelving systems located, for instance, in retail shops and similar outlets.

A major problem with any shelf system used to retail merchandise is that the product available for sale becomes less and less visible as more product is sold and removed from the shelf. This means that the shelves have to be constantly restocked by "merchandisers" who move the older product from the rear to the front of the shelves and place new product at the rear thereof. This is very labour intensive and furthermore, the product is not offered for sale in the most appealing way as the customer has to look under the shelf to see what product is available if the shelf is not fully stocked. This is a particular problem on the lower shelves near ground level.

There is therefore a need to provide a shop merchandising system in which the merchandise is automatically fed to the front of the shelf on which it is displayed.

Prior art merchandising systems are known with inclined shelves in which a plurality of identical items can be stacked in a linear array. In many cases, the weight of the items themselves has been employed to provide a gravity bias for the linear array in a forwardly direction. However, it has been found that as an increasing number of items were dispensed from the shelf, the remaining merchandise often fell over or became jumbled up thereby presenting an unappealing appearance. This problem has also been overcome in the prior art by using spring biasing mechanisms to urge the product array forwardly or alternatively by providing a weight biased sliding backrest to hold the product in its upright position and feed it forwardly on the shelf.These solutions suffered from the problem that they were either complicated and therefore expensive to manufacture or alternatively the gravity biasing backup weight took up valuable shelf space thereby reducing the amount of product that could be displayed on the shelf.

It is an object of the present invention to overcome the problems of the prior art by providing a gravity feed merchandising apparatus and pusher therefor which is simple to manufacture and does not take up valuable merchandising space on the shelf.

According to one aspect of the invention therefore there is provided a gravity operated pusher for urging merchandise towards the front of an inclined shelf comprising an openfronted carrier to receive a proportion of the merchandise to be dispensed, said carrier having friction reducing means on the underside thereof to enable the carrier to slide down the inclined shelf.

Preferably the carrier is substantially L-shaped and comprises a base with a backrest extending upwardly therefrom, the carrier having no sides or front wall.

Preferably the backrest is located at or adjacent the rear edge of the carrier base and makes an obtuse angle with the base. It can however be a 900 or at an acute angle relative to the base.

The friction reducing means can take any convenient form but preferably comprises rolling means mounted on the base of the carrier. In a preferred embodiment, the rolling means comprises a plurality of balls each rotatably mounted in the base, the balls being sandwiched between the underside of the carrier base and a retaining member attached thereto, each ball protruding through a respective aperture in the retaining member so that, in use, the ball can make rolling contact with the inclined shelf.

Alternatively, the friction reducing means can comprise strips or pads of a friction reducing material such as polytetrofluoroethylene (Teflon) attached to the underside of the base. Alternatively, the underside can be formed with ribs or a plurality of rollers can be mounted on the base.

The pusher is preferably moulded from a rigid plastics material but it can be fabricated if desired from any suitable rigid material, e.g. wood or metal.

The major advantage of the pusher of the present invention is that it is extremely cheap and easy to manufacture as the carrier has no front or side walls. As a proportion the product to be dispensed is carried on the pusher carrier base itself, the weight of the product provides the gravity feed bias needed to push the remainder of the product in front of the pusher towards the front of the shelf.

Another important advantage of the invention is that it provides a gravity feed system which utilises the full depth and merchandising space of each shelf, thereby eliminating dead stock zones. Thus, staff merchandising time is reduced to a minimum and furthermore, the shelves appear full at all times as the pusher moves the products to the front edge of the shelf after each purchase has been made.

Preferably the pusher is dimensioned to carry between 10% and 30% of the merchandise to be dispensed from the shelf thereby creating the necessary gravity force to push the remaining stock of merchandise forwardly and maintain it in a generally upright condition. It can however support more than 30% and can also optionally include additional weighting means.

The trays or shelves can be provided in single or multiple groups and adapted to be connected to existing traditional merchandising equipment, i.e. metal or timber shelving systems. They can however also be provided as a free standing unit in single or multiple shelf form. The invention is applicable universally throughout the shop fitting and retail industries and the benefits are considerable in terms of space saving, staff time saving and improved merchandising for the product.

A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a side view of part of a merchandising apparatus of the present invention showing the product pusher in a first position; Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1 but showing the product pusher in a second position; and Figure 3 is an exploded view of the product pusher shown in Figures 1 and 2.

Referring now to Figures 1 and 2 of the drawings, it can be seen that the invention comprises one or more shelves 2 mounted in known manner on shelf uprights 1. Typically each shelf 2 is inclined at an angle of approximately 250 to the vertical and includes an upstanding front wall 3. This can be an integral part of the shelf or it can be formed separately.

Typically the shelf 2 will be divided up longitudinally into a plurality of separate compartments by means of dividers 4, each compartment containing a column of product 7 and a respective product pusher 5.

The construction of the product pusher 5 is shown in more detail in Figure 3 of the drawings and can be seen to comprise a base 10 with a backrest 11 extending upwardly therefrom at an acute angle. The angle of the backrest 11 is selected so that it is generally vertically orientated when the pusher is in position on the shelf as shown in Figures 1 and 2. The base 10 and backrest 11 are preferably integrally formed and moulded from a single piece of rigid plastics material. A rigid retaining member 12 with four holes 14 formed therein receives ball-bearings 13 which are sandwiched between the retaining member 12 and the base 10 but freely rotatable. Whilst four ball-bearings are illustrated, it will be appreciated that any other number of ball-bearings or rollers could be used.The retaining member 12 is attached to the undersurface of the base 10 by means of double-sided adhesive tape 15 to retain the ballbearings 13 in position in the holes 14 with a portion thereof protruding therefrom to contact the shelf 2. The retaining member 12 can however be attached to the base 10 in any other convenient way.

Instead of using rollers or the ball-bearings 13, pads of RTrvl polytetrofluoroethylene (Teflon) may be used or alternatively friction reducing ribs can be formed on the underside of the carrier base 10.

Ideally the length of the carrier base 10 is approximately 30% of the total depth D of the shelf 2. This means that 30% of the product 7 to be dispensed from the shelf is carried by the carrier base 10 which gives it sufficient weight to automatically feed the static product 7 at the front of the shelf 2 forwardly after the front most product 7a has been removed.

Claims (14)

1. A gravity operated pusher for urging merchandise towards the front of an inclined shelf comprising an openfronted carrier to receive a proportion of the merchandise to be dispensed, said carrier having friction reducing means on the underside thereof to enable the carrier to slide down the inclined shelf.

2. A pusher as claimed in claim 1 wherein the carrier is substantially L-shaped and comprises a base with a backrest extending upwardly therefrom, the carrier having no sides or front wall.

3. A pusher as claimed in claim 2 wherein the backrest is located at or adjacent the rear edge of the carrier base.

4. A pusher as claimed in claim 3 wherein the backrest makes an obtuse angle with the base.

5. A pusher as claimed in claim 4 wherein the obtuse angle is 90" plus the angle of inclination of the shelf so that, in use, the backrest is vertical when the pusher is in position on the shelf.

6. A pusher as claimed in any preceding claim wherein the friction reducing means comprises rolling means mounted on the base.

7. A pusher as claimed in claim 6 wherein the rolling means comprises a plurality of balls each rotatably mounted in the base.

8. A pusher as claimed in claim 7 wherein the balls are sandwiched between the underside of the carrier base and a retaining member attached thereto, each ball protruding through a respective aperture in the retaining member so that, in use, said ball can make rolling contact with the inclined shelf.

9. A pusher as claimed in claim 6 wherein the rolling means comprises a plurality of rollers mounted on the base.

10. A pusher as claimed in any of claims 1-5 wherein the friction reducing means comprises strips or pads of a polytetrafluoroethylene material (Teflon) attached to the underside of the base.

11. A pusher as claimed in any preceding claim moulded from a rigid plastics material.

12. A gravity feed merchandising apparatus comprising at least one inclined shelf for displaying merchandise having an upstanding front wall and gravity operated pusher means as claimed in any preceding claim for urging merchandise on the or each shelf towards the front wall thereof after removal of an item of merchandise therefrom.

13. A gravity operated pusher substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.

14. A gravity feed merchandising apparatus substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying drawings.