If you were a dealership, you wanted your customers to buy parts for their machines from your business. Oliver used the slogan "Genuine Parts" to encourage customers to only use original equipment parts from dealers instead of aftermarket or generic farm store brands. In order to get more parts in front of customers while the visited a dealership, Oliver began using "merchandiser" displays in the 1960's. These merchandiser shelving units were placed on showroom floor and were stocked with fast moving parts which allowed self service by the customer to select and bring what they needed to the parts counter for purchase. In mid 1960's, Oliver Corporation rolled out a program offering merchandisers to their dealers. The merchandiser shelving units and topper signs were made by the Paul Williams company of Chicago. In fact, dealers could get these displays for free in some circumstances using their "POP" points. POP was an acronym for the "RePair Stock Order Program" (although maybe not a very good one!) in which Oliver corporate offered dealers a discount/credit on their orders of repair parts to have in stock. Dealers could then use their "POP" points they accrued from repair part stock orders to buy the merchandisers.
The 4 foot wide merchandiser shelving units were painted gray and used a clover white pegboard backer. Adjustable shelves, wire bins, peg hooks were offered with them to fit a huge variety of repair parts. The units could be topped with signage - either a 36" wide GENUINE PARTS sign or 1 of 23 smaller 24" signs listing parts such as: Plow, Paint, Engine, Chain & Links, Tractor, and others. Their design allowed the dealer a variety of options for placement. They could be put along walls, placed back to back with another unit, or even arranged into 4' x 8' "islands" using 4 units (2 back to back and one unit each end). These displays gave dealers an attractive way for customers to actually see some of the repair products and maybe even save the parts guy some time! Today, they are great item sought after by Oliver collectors to display their treasures! If you need a GENUINE PARTS sign for your collection, we offer one in the same design used on the merchandisers - CLICK HERE to order. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorJim Fitzgerald Archives
May 2024
Categories |