TerraCard®: A Lasting Impression for Home Improvement Retailers

Durable outdoor signage makes a lasting impression for home improvement retailers.

For one major multinational home improvement retailer, the garden center was a major focal point for busy shoppers. Business was growing just as fast as the plants. While customers were buying up flowers, trees and garden tools, their shopping carts were continuously bumping into essential end-cap and aisle display signage that promoted everything from price specials to specific brands of products for sale. It’s a tight space and these impacts simply couldn’t be avoided. Even the retailer’s employees had difficulty always avoiding the signage as they moved products with bulky forklifts.

The result of these cart impacts was the PVC based signage would crack and quickly become an eyesore. This required the damaged material to be replaced each time in order to maintain a clean and inviting garden center appearance for customers while also maintaining an appealing brand image the retailer demanded. The outdoor durability and replacement cost savings solution this home improvement retailer required was what attracted them to TerraCard®, a PolyPrime® product from Spartech.

TerraCard® was originally developed almost two decades ago as a unique solution for a national merchandise retailer that wanted to issue their customers loyalty cards that wouldn’t crack or get brittle from scanning use or when stored in a wallet or purse. It was definitely the proven and durable solution the home improvement retailer was searching for to make a lasting impression with their garden center shoppers.

High resolution graphics. High customer impact.

For the home improvement retailer, the decision to switch over to TerraCard® was made even easier since this material wouldn’t yellow. In fact, their overall spoilage numbers went down by 12% since the material wasn’t cracking or yellowing. Plus, actual material expenditures were lowered because they were “downgauging” in material thickness compared to PVC. The added benefit was they gained a better printing output quality on TerraCard® that produces vivid colors as well as high resolution quality graphics and photos.

The other selling point with TerraCard® for the home improvement retailer was that this material was recyclable. This was very important in their buying decision since when printing using their current PVC material selection it would result in a large amount of trim scrap. The only option with this waste was to throw it in the trash bins. By switching to TerraCard®, they were now taking that trim scrap and selling it to a recycler. So, they went from putting things into landfills to actually making it a profit center.