Prepress
T-MOBILE CALLS ON CHARTERHOUSE FOR POINT OF SALE REVOLUTION
Thursday 06. November 2008 - Independent print management company Charterhouse has changed the way telecoms giant T-Mobile produces, delivers, installs and disposes of its instore POS, replacing it with a system of self-adhesive graphics that are simply placed over the old ones.
T-Mobile’s previous system was time consuming and the POS was bulky to produce and collate, and costly to transport. It also had to be collected from a central store, which in itself amounted to 3,000 trips. Although initially reluctant to change, T-Mobile was persuaded by Charterhouse to try another method, which has been trialed and now rolled out throughout the company.
“We challenged three suppliers to help us find a low tack, water based solution which could be applied to a new large polypropylene graphic,” says Charterhouse account director Kingsley Holding. “Two said it could not be done and one agreed to work with us. Jointly we worked with an adhesive manufacturer to develop a specialist low tack, water based adhesive.”
The concept is that the existing graphics are replaced with 100% recyclable polypropylene versions, which simply have new graphics positioned over the old ones. This system of layering rather than replacing means a £600k cost saving in print, collation and transport. In addition, there is a 30% time reduction to market, 45% less packaging and zero landfill on all non-paper related POS product.
Charterhouse trained all the fitting teams to ensure that they understood how the new process worked and then conducted store trials and questionnaires. Workshops were also held to demonstrate how layering one graphic over another worked. Every three months the merchandising teams will take down the frames and make them ready for recycling, and install fresh graphics for that month.
“This project has had results above and beyond our expectations,” says Sarah Smith, Head of Retail Campaigns at T-Mobile. “We are making significant savings on materials, collation and distribution costs. We are working towards having a full closed loop production cycle which means that all waste is tracked and then reconciled in one central location. We want to be a socially responsible retailer and recycle and reuse 100% of all our POS material. Charterhouse has helped us achieve this.”