We love using bamboo to make retail POP displays. Bamboo is an amazing material. Most people think of bamboo as a highly sustainable, environmentally-friendly material- which it is. However, bamboo’s benefits go way beyond being a green material. In today’s post, we’ll review some of the key reasons we are so high on bamboo, and we’ll show you two cool examples of bamboo displays we created for customers within the last 30 days.
So what is so great about bamboo displays? Here a just a few reasons you should consider incorporating bamboo into your next display:
1) Eco-Friendly– Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on earth. Some species have been clocked to grow at almost 4 ft. in 1 day. A bamboo tree generates to its full mass in about 6 months. Most hardwoods like Oak or Mahogany take 30-50 years to achieve their full mass.
2) Strength and Durability- Bamboo is incredibly strong and can serve well as a structural element of a POP display. Some species of bamboo (like Moso which is the bamboo species used for flooring and what we use in making displays) are stronger than steel and have higher compressive strength than many mixtures of concrete. We made a desktop podium in our millwork shop and tested the strength of bamboo for ourselves.
3) Easy to Work With- From a manufacturing standpoint, bamboo is easy to work with. It can be milled, glued, stained, etc. In addition, the edges have a very decorative finish which not only creates interest but also does not require edge banding.
4) Natural Beauty- Bamboo plywood is a naturally beautiful material and fits a wide range of store environments. We use BamTuff® bamboo which is a high quality, architectural-grade bamboo that comes in natural, carbonized (amber), strand-woven, and chocolate varieties.
So let’s look at two examples of cool retail bamboo POP displays that we recently made in our millwork shop in Oceanside, CA. The first display is a bamboo counter glorifier to be place on Celebrity Cruise Lines ships. The beautiful bamboo is what really makes this simple serenity-inspired spa glorifier. We designed it to showcase Coola’s line of organic sunscreen and suncare products. We used carbonized bamboo and finished it with a clear coat. We added simple white raised acrylic letters to promote the Coola brand. This cool bamboo retail display gives off a relaxing vibe so it’s easy to picture it in a cruise ship spa.
Our second example is a display we just completed for Jade Yoga, the maker of eco-friendly yoga mats. Jade Yoga mats are sustainably made from natural rubber tapped from rubber trees, a renewable resource which contains no PVC, EVA, or other synthetic rubber. Jade Yoga plants a tree for each mat sold. The company is approaching 1 million trees planted. With this kind of natural products story, you can see why a highly sustainable material like bamboo is a perfect fit for this product.
We created a 3-step display made of 100% carbonized bamboo. We added a clear coat finish to give the bamboo a higher-end look. We laser engraved Jade Yoga’s logo on the header and also laser engraved the “Buy a Mat, Plant a Tree” message on the front base panel. To reinforce that message we also silk screened a tree with the same message on both sides of the display. Look for this display in Dick’s Sporting Goods and other retail locations.
