Multi-tiered racks are widely used to display products being offered for sale by wholesalers, retailers and the like. Such racks are preferably arranged so that at least some of the products placed in or on them are readily visible for inspection and purchase. Examples of such racks are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,652,154 (Stevens); 4,762,235 (Howard et al.) and 5,111,942 (Bernardin). The store fixture system shown in the Howard et al. patent has several horizontal rows arranged in tiers for product display. Such tiers are arranged vertically one above the other.
It is advantageous to configure such racks so that at least some products on each of all tiers are visible at a glance to persons passing by. A way to do so is to arrange the rack so that each horizontal row juts slightly forward beyond the rows above it. The rack thereby has what might be described as a "terraced" appearance. Examples of terraced racks are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,083,067 (Vos et al.) and 4,706,821 (Kohls et al.).
The racks depicted in the aforementioned patents share a common feature in that all of them have plural product-holding compartments. Each such compartment has some sort of "pusher" device to help support the products upright for display purposes and to urge products forward to the compartment front whenever a product package is withdrawn from such compartment.
While such racks have been generally suitable for their intended purpose, they are characterized by certain disadvantages. One is that racks of the type shown in the Vos et al. and Kohls et al. patents are incapable of using the full depth of each compartment to hold merchandise for display. That is, a portion of the available compartment front-to-rear depth is occupied by a foot-like portion of the pusher device; the entire compartment depth cannot be filled with products.
Another disadvantage relates to the fact that such racks often involve what might be termed a guide component of the pusher device moving along a guide slot in the "floor" of the compartment. Such arrangement permits free fore-and-aft movement of the pusher device while at the same time restricting lateral device movement. The guide component and/or the guide slot are subject to wear due to device movement, whether because products are periodically loaded into the compartment by store personnel or are removed therefrom by purchasers. Either activity results in movement of the pusher device. Such prior art racks have no way to compensate for guide component/guide slot wear and thereby keep the pusher device generally centered in the compartment.
Yet another disadvantage of racks of the type shown in the Vos et al. and Kohls et al. patents is that even though such racks are somewhat terraced, the rear portions of all but the upper horizontal row of compartments are obscured from view by the compartment row immediately thereabove. As a consequence, store personnel are not easily able to see whether or not a particular compartment soon needs to be replenished with products.
A merchandise display rack which uses the full compartment depth to hold displayed merchandise, which includes a mechanism to compensate for wear and which is configured so that substantially the entirety of each compartment is readily visible would be an important advance in the art.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds