The English verb “to display” means “to present, to show, to provide on a screen, to express, to exhibit, to manifest”.

This leads us to the main definition of the “display” as a “silent salesman” offering products in a representative way to promote sales. Hence a display is a salespromoting tool used directly at the point of sale (POS) to increase the sale of goods. The display is positioned in a prominent place outside the store shelf, presenting the products in a way that catches the attention and distinguishes them from competing products. Apart from its three key purposes of drawing attention, distinguishing in a representative way and promoting sales, the display performs a large number of new functions. Naturally, these are logistic and protective functions that make sure the products arrive safely at the stores, the function of increasing the space for products in the store and the mediation function of making the customer familiar with a product, product group or brand.

In this chapter the historical development of the modern “display” and its fundamental functions during select historical periods will be presented by Christoph Häberle und Sophie Wittl in order to learn to identify changing requirements in the future.