DISPLAY PACKAGE FOR ARTICLES
Field of the Invention
The present invention refers to a new construction of a package for storing an amount of articles, such as articles of personal hygiene to be purchased by a retailer, and displayed to the consumers in different points of retail sale usually provided with hook supports for hanging the articles, or counters and shelves for placing the products to be sold, as it occurs in different commercial establishments. Background of the invention
There are well known from the prior art different constructions of a package for containing products, which are usually but not exclusively packaged in blisters, to be sold in different points of retail sale, in which it is desirable to have the products adequately displayed to the consumers attending said point of sale. These packages have generally a parallelepipedic shape made of cardboard and constructed in different ways, in order to function as a means for storing the manufactured product, as well as a means for shipping the product to the points of sale, where the product is delivered to the retailer. In this type of construction, the retailer is forced to open the package and place each article on a display device, which may take the form of a hook support, a shelf, or even a drawer, not only requiring a certain work from the retailer, but also the use of display devices, which very often are not' available, mainly in small and medium size stores.
Some packages of this type are constructed to be superiorly opened by the retailer and placed onto a horizontal counter or shelf, in order to function as a kind of tray for containing and displaying the
products during the phase of retail sale. Nevertheless, such known parallelepipedic packages do not form, when superiorly opened, a display device for displaying the articles in an organized way, in order to allow the consumer to visually select an individual article to be taken out from the package, without having to manipulate or move aside the other articles. Furthermore, depending on the height at which the package is placed, the amount of articles therewithin may not be seen by the retailer and mainly by the consumer, the visual advertising of the product being limited to the messages externally applied to the package walls. The poor vision of the interior of these packages, when placed in a high position, prevents the retailer from visually and easily controlling the amount of the remaining articles, i.e., the stock available to the consumers. Summary of the Invention The present display package presents a parallelepipedic shape, having a rear wall, a front wall, a upper wall and lateral walls. The front wall, the upper wall and the lateral walls are provided with weakened lines, which are joined to each other by their ends, and which are manually ruptured to define a front cover, which is removable to display the internal portion of the package, from a certain height of its lower wall. The rear wall supports at least one hook for hanging the displayed articles to be sold inside their own package, which functions as a display device.
Brief Description of the Drawings
The invention will be described below, with reference to the attached drawings, in which:
Figure 1 is a front lateral perspective view of the package, prior to the rupture of the weakened lines
and to the removal of the front cover;
Figure 2 is a perspective view of the package of figure 1, after the removal of the front cover, which is illustrated in an exploded position; Figure 3 is a similar view to that of figure 2, but illustrating the rear wall internally provided with a pair of hooks for hanging the articles; and Figure 4 is a vertical sectional view of one of the hooks, in the condition mounted to the rear wall of the package.
Detailed Description of the Drawings
As illustrated in the attached drawings, the present package is preferably formed from a single sheet of cardboard, board, or any other similar material adequate to the desired operation.
The cardboard sheet is cut and folded, in order to allow the formation of a package 10, preferably in a parallelepipedic shape, whose height is substantially larger than both the width and the depth. It should be understood that other package shapes may also be used and constructed in different manners, according to the characteristics of the articles A to be packaged.
In the illustrated embodiment, the package 10 presents a front wall 11, a rear wall 12, an upper wall 13, a lower wall 14, lateral walls 15, a front edge lib and a front edge lie, the front wall 11 and the upper wall 13 being provided with a weakened front line 11a and a weakened upper line 13a, respectively, which are upwardly and backwardly spaced from the lower wall 14 and from the front wall 11 of the package, respectively.
As illustrated, the weakened front line 11a and the weakened upper line 13a may have their ends limited by the lateral walls 15 of the package, and be arranged
in a rectilinear and parallel form in relation to the lower front edge lib and to the upper front edge lie of the parallelepipedic package. However, it should be understood that the weakened front line 11a and the weakened upper line 13a may present different shapes adequate to the plastic form and to the specific functional characteristic desired to be obtained from the package . The distance between the weakened front line 11a and the lower front edge lib and the distance between the weakened upper line 13a and the upper front edge lie are dimensioned as a function of the articles A to be packaged, and of the requirements to manually access the interior of the package, when it is operating as a display device on a counter or on a wall.
In the case of the weakened upper line 13a for example, its distance in relation to the upper front edge lie of the package should be dimensioned in order to define, between this weakened upper line 13a and the rear wall 12, an upper wall portion, sufficient to assure a certain minimal structural resistance to the package, when in the display device condition. The ends of the weakened front line 11a and of the weakened upper line 13a are joined to each other by weakened lateral lines 15a, each provided on one of the lateral walls 15. The four weakened lines, which may be contained in the same inclined plane, according to the illustrated embodiment, are manually ruptured to define a front cover 20, which is removable, allowing the package 10 to remain frontally opened, displaying the packaged articles A, as well as allowing an easy visual selection of said articles, which may be then manually taken by both the consumer and the retailer. In order that the articles A may be displayed in an
organized way and easily accessed, the rear wall 12 carries, internally, at least one hook 30 for hanging the displayed articles A to be sold.
In the illustrated embodiment, there are provided two hooks 30, which are forwardly projected, defining two hook supports for holding the articles A, which may thus be organized in two sets of articles, which will remain hanging and displayed inside the package 10 when the front cover 20 is removed. The hooks 30 may be constructed in different manners, such as for example, incorporated to the rear wall 12 during manufacture of the package 10 and already in an operative position when the retailer opens the package. In this case, depending on the article A to be displayed, it may come packaged from the factory, already set in groups and mounted to the hooks 30 which have been previously attached to the rear wall 12. However, it is possible to use solutions that simplify the process of manufacturing the package 10 and of packaging the articles at the production line, leaving the retailer in charge of mounting the hooks 30 and organizing the articles A on the hook supports formed after opening the package 10. In the above mentioned hypothesis, each hook 30 may comprise a flat flange 31 to be seated against the internal face of the rear wall 12, said flat flange 31 carrying a front rod 32, projecting forwardly thereof and which is constructed to define a hook support, and a rear rod 33, with an extension only sufficient to trespass a window 18 of the rear wall 12 and incorporating an upwardly turned small end portion 33a, to be tightly seated against the external face of the rear wall 12, in opposition to the flat flange 31, and assuring the stability of the hook 30, which can
thus be easily and quickly mounted by the retailer himself .
Each window 18 may be peripherally defined by a corresponding weakened line of the rear wall 12, which weakened line is easily ruptured by the retailer.
Further considering that the package 10 may be wrapped in a protecting film, after it has been filled and closed, the windows 18 may be already opened during manufacture of the package 10. When the retailer receives the package 10 containing an amount of articles A, he ruptures the weakened lines 11a, 13a, and 15a and removes the front cover 20, allowing said articles A to be manually and visually accessible to both the consumer and the retailer. In case the hooks 30 are packaged in the interior of the package 10 together with the articles A, all the retailer has to do is to mount the hooks 30 to the rear wall 12, by gluing, clipping, or by fitting, as it occurs in the illustrated embodiment, and then promote the organized suspension of the articles A on said hooks 30.
The display device thus formed may have its lower wall 14 placed on a counter, or have its rear wall 12 seated and attached against any vertical wall. In order to be suspended against the vertical wall provided with a hanging hook, such as a small nail, the package 10 should be provided with a suspending element, which can take the form of a hole 19 provided on the rear wall 12 and peripherally circled by a weakened line to be ruptured by the retailer, or said hole may be previously opened during manufacture of the package 10. Another form for suspending the package 10 may comprise a small lug (not illustrated) , of known construction, which is vertically upwardly projected from the rear wall 12, and defined by
ruptuing and angularly upwardly displacing a respective adjacent portion of the upper wall 13. As already mentioned, the package 10 may have forms other than the parallelepipedic, provided that it presents the dimension and the shape which are adequate to store and display the articles A in a hanging condition in the interior thereof, with the package being simply placed on a counter or suspended against a vertical wall.