Use Fish Bowl Containers to Serve Holiday-Inspired Drink Promos

Plastic containers are some of the most popular display fixtures among a variety of business owners, and this is thanks in large part to the variety plastic containers themselves offer! Store and other business owners can find these containers in numerous shapes, sizes, styles, and colors – all factors that help them create the perfect display for their merchandise.

You probably already knew that fish bowl containers also fall into this category; however, what you might not have been aware of yet is that fish bowl containers can do much more than just act as display fixtures (as well as storage tools). These kinds of plastic containers are also great for serving drink promotions!

If you manage a tavern, or a restaurant or hotel with a bar, and plan to add holiday-inspired mixed drinks to your menu this season, check out the three steps listed below to help get started!

Step One: Check Out Your Fish Bowl Options

Like the umbrella group of “plastic containers,” fish bowl containers are available in numerous sizes and even materials (for example, you can find them in both plastic and glass).

Consider the tips below as you’re determining which fish bowls to order for your drink promotions:

• Size: When you think about the sizes you want to use, think about the number of people who will be consuming the drinks. You might want to choose small fish bowls for one or two people, and medium-sized or large fish bowls for three or more people. The most popular choice is usually the 2.5-gallon fish bowl, so you might want to choose bowls in those sizes to be on the safe side.
• Material: You can find fish bowls in both plastic and glass; the material you choose is entirely up to you. You might prefer plastic, for the durability and safety it offers (fish bowl drink promos are generally served to a group of two or more people; plus, plastic weighs less), or you might prefer glass, for the elegance and charm it offers.

Step Two: Accessorize Your Fish Bowls

We’ve all seen mixed drinks with “accessories” (think of the little umbrellas bartenders use to decorate drinks with “tropical” or “summer” themes).

When it comes to holiday-inspired drinks, you might want to look for holiday-inspired accessories that feature holly, snowflakes, Christmas trees, or Santa Claus, or you might simply want to look for accessories in popular holiday colors like red, green, gold, and silver. Browse around the websites or catalogs of a variety of wholesalers to see what they have to offer in terms of mixed drink accessories.

Step Three: Advertise Your Fish Bowl Drink Promos

Once you’ve chosen the fish bowl containers in which to serve your holiday-inspired drinks and the accessories (if any) with which to decorate them, it’s time to advertise your promos!

Obviously, you’ll want to add these drinks to your restaurant’s, tavern’s, or hotel’s drink menu, and you’ll probably want to create a special bulletin or sign and situate it somewhere within your establishment; however, don’t underestimate the power of outside advertising such as radio commercials. Letting your regular and potential customers know about special holiday-inspired drink specials they might not have found out about until the next time they visited (or, in the case of potential customers, they might not have found out about at all!) is a great way to fill your seats!

How to Use Fish Bowl Displays in Your Restaurant or Tavern

When you think of fish bowl containers as display fixtures in a store setting, you probably think of the kinds of round, fish bowl shaped containers that convenience stores and candy stores use to hold everything from gumballs to travel-sized hygiene products.

However, thanks to the numerous shapes and sizes of fish bowls available – as well as the fact that you can get them in either plastic or glass varieties – fish bowl containers are actually excellent tools for restaurants and taverns, too – and not just for displaying merchandise! Whether you’re interested in creating a merchandise display to increase your sales, displaying complimentary items for your customers’ convenience, or using the containers as collection tools, fish bowl containers provide solutions.

Need some help? Below are five ways you can use fish bowl displays in your restaurant or tavern.

1. Use Fish Bowls to Create Miniature Drink Promotions

Fish bowl containers are excellent display fixtures for creating miniature drink promotion displays. Because the promotional drink bottles are generally small, they fit easily in large fish bowls you can display anywhere in your restaurant or tavern. Another perk is the space-saving factor: A fish bowl, no matter its size, is almost always guaranteed to take up less space than a shelf used for miniature drink promotion displays.

2. Use Fish Bowls to Display Additional Items for Sale

Obviously, if fish bowls are great fixtures for displaying miniature drink promotion merchandise, they work well for displaying other merchandise items, too!

Naturally, what you include in your fish bowl displays will depend on the kinds of merchandise your restaurant or tavern sells, but because there are many different sizes and shapes of fish bowl containers to choose from, finding the perfect container for your display will be a breeze.

3. Use Fish Bowls to Collect Tips

Fish bowls can do more than just display items for sale – they’re also good for collecting items from your customers.

Restaurants and taverns are some of the most common places where customers leave tips for services. Plastic and glass fish bowls are available in numerous sizes, which makes it easy for restaurant managers to situate them on tables or bars for customers to leave tips for their waiters, waitresses, or bartenders.

4. Use Fish Bowls to Collect Business Cards

Just as restaurants and taverns can use fish bowls to collect tips, they can also use them to collect business cards from customers to use for drawings for gifts or special offers and discounts. This is an especially good idea for establishments who see high volumes of traffic from business professionals who regularly conduct lunches, dinners, or friendly get-togethers at the establishment.

5. Use Fish Bowls to Offer Complimentary and Convenience Items

Toothpicks, breath mints, matchbooks, hand wipes – these are all complimentary items restaurants and taverns can display for the convenience of their customers. Perhaps you’ll want to create small fish bowl displays of these items on your tables and large fish bowl displays on your restaurant or tavern bar.

3 Sample Plastic Containers for Product Sales

Because they’re available in such a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and styles, plastic containers are perfect for product sales. Virtually every kind of business – from convenience stores and gas stations to candy stores and ice cream parlors – can use plastic containers for storing and displaying an array of merchandise types.

Below are three of the most common kinds of plastic containers businesses of all kinds can use for showcasing products.

1. Traditional Plastic Containers

For these purposes, think of “traditional” as a word that describes the most common kinds of plastic containers we see in retail settings. These containers come in nearly every size and shape, some are clear and some are colored, and stores typically use them for creating countertop displays or holding merchandise on floor display racks.

Some of the most popular kinds of traditional plastic containers include:

• Round and Fish Bowl Containers: Round containers and fish bowl containers are probably the most common kinds of display containers for product sales. When you think of fish bowl containers especially, you probably think of the glass fish bowls that typically do what their name suggests – hold fish – as well as hold merchandise like candy in high-end or old-fashioned candy stores. Their plastic counterparts are excellent alternatives for stores that see high amounts of traffic!

• Square and Rectangular Containers: Square containers are available in a variety of widths and heights (meaning that, yes, you can find rectangular containers) and their flat sides make them perfect for creating produce displays in areas with limited space like countertops. You can easily position a number of square containers side-by-side and front-to-back to make the most of the space you have available.

• Hexagon Containers: Hexagon containers are a sort of hybrid of round and square containers. They don’t save as much space as square or rectangular containers, but they do allow for positioning them flush, front-to-back.

2. Plastic Containers with Lids

Plastic containers with lids are perfect for storing and showcasing edible merchandise that is otherwise unprotected such as bulk unwrapped candies. You can find containers with lids in numerous shapes and sizes, though the most popular tend to be rectangular or square containers with lids of varying widths and heights.

Although this use doesn’t relate to product sales, business owners should keep in mind that containers with lids are also ideal for “behind-the-scenes” uses for businesses such as restaurants as they can store and keep fresh cooking items like sugar, flour, salt, pepper, and cornmeal.

3. Hand Grip Plastic Containers

Plastic containers with hand grips are ideal for showcasing merchandise that customers need to pour for themselves, such as treats like trail mix, jelly beans, or peanuts or other edible items like coffee beans. Sure, depending on the size of the container, customers don’t always necessarily need hand grips to lift the containers, but the hand grips definitely make it easier to lift the containers and lower the chances of a product spill.

Because of their hand grips, these kinds of containers are also great for organizing merchandise under your countertops, in your stockroom, and even in your manager’s office.

5 Ideas for Using Large Fish Bowl Displays

Thanks to the wide variety of fish bowls available, these containers are some of the most versatile display fixtures around. For example, you can find fish bowls:

• In a variety of sizes. Create large displays using a few large fish bowls, or create large displays using several small fish bowls. Determine what kinds of merchandise you want to display – or, what you want to use your containers for – and then select the sizes appropriate for those items or uses.
• Both plastic and glass, which makes it easy for you to create not only an attractive display, but also a safe display. If your business tends to see a lot of traffic, plastic fish bowl containers are probably your best bet; however, if your store has a more laid back atmosphere and the customers consist mostly of adults, you might be able to get away with glass fish bowl containers.
  

Perhaps the most popular use for a large fish bowl display is displaying candy; however, these containers offer so many more uses! Read on for five ways you can create large fish bowl displays for your business.

1. Create a Liquor Miniature Display Using Fish Bowls

If you manage a liquor store, tavern, or bar-and-grill restaurant, chances are you sell miniature bottles of liquor. Large fish bowl displays are ideal for organizing and showcasing these bottles. Because of their size, liquor miniatures easily fit in large fish bowls and these containers make convenient displays for your customers.

2. Display Convenience Items in Fish Bowls

Convenience stores are well known for selling emergency convenience items like travel-sized hygiene products, eyeglass repair kits, and miniature sewing kits, but other stores often use fish bowls to display such convenience items like lip balm, small bottles of hand lotion, and hand sanitizer.

3. Hold Prizes in Your Fish Bowls

Amusement parks, theme parks, carnivals, and arcades frequently rely on fish bowl displays to showcase their prizes – some of which include actual fish. These businesses can also use fish bowl containers to collect tokens and tickets for games and rides.

Because they’re lightweight and easily transported, plastic fish bowl containers are the most popular among these establishments.

4. Showcase Souvenirs in Fish Bowl Displays

Whether you manage a souvenir shop in a popular tourist area or a restaurant that sells merchandise stamped with your logo, you can use large fish bowl displays throughout your establishment to organize and display your items.

5. Collect Tips and Business Cards in Fish Bowls

You can use large fish bowls to do more than just display items for sale – you can also use them to collect items from your customers!

Many restaurants, taverns, and bar-and-grill establishments use fish bowls to collect tips. Small fish bowls are best for individual tables in restaurants, but bars in establishments like taverns sometimes use large fish bowls because a higher number of customers are present at one time.

The containers are also great for collecting business cards of patrons who frequent the establishment for special drawings or just to call the businesses or professionals and let them know about special offers.

Fish Bowls for Convenience Store Displays: Plastic or Glass?

Fish bowl containers are ideal for more than just providing a home for your pet fish! These versatile containers have been helping convenience store owners create perfect merchandise displays for many years.

Convenience store’s can use fish bowl containers to:

• Create countertop displays of edible merchandise like candy, or non-edible merchandise like ponytail holders, all-in-one pocket tools, key chains, or children’s toys like bouncy balls.

• Position your fish bowls on wire display racks and situate your displays throughout your convenience store.

• If your convenience store has a deli-style area, you can place fish bowls on the countertop or on each individual table to collect tips from patrons or displays packets of condiments, seasonings, coffee extras, breath mints, toothpicks, hand wipes, or complimentary matchbooks.

Both plastic and glass fish bowls work well for convenience store displays, but the kind of convenience store you operate will determine which material you should choose.

When are Plastic Fish Bowls Best for Convenience Store Displays?

Plastic fish bowls are usually always the best options for convenience stores that experience high volumes of fast-paced traffic.

Plastic is generally less likely to break if a customer should bump into the bowls in a countertop display or into the wire display rack holding the bowls.

When are Glass Fish Bowls Best for Convenience Store Displays?

Quite the opposite of plastic fish bowls, glass fish bowls work well for convenience stores that don’t experience high volumes of fast-paced traffic.

Generally, the less traffic a store experiences, the fewer chances there are for customers to bump into and break fish bowl displays.

Tips for Choosing Plastic or Glass Fish Bowls

If you’re still unsure about which fish bowls to use in your convenience store displays, consider these tips:

• If your store experiences a high number of customers each day and the environment is generally fast paced and hectic, consider plastic fish bowl containers.

• If your store operates at a slower pace, consider glass fish bowl containers. Slower-paced convenience stores present fewer opportunities for the fish bowls to break and create dangerous situations.

• In addition to the kind of traffic your store experiences, consider your store’s “feel.” If your store leans toward a particular theme or décor, chances are one or the other material – glass or plastic – will work best.

• Think about the kind of merchandise you plan to display in the fish bowls. If it’s merchandise adults are more likely to grab such as mini eyeglass repair kits or lighters, glass fish bowls might work; however, if it’s merchandise more likely to catch a child’s eye such as gumballs, candies, or bouncy balls, it might be best to choose plastic fish bowls.

Remember, when it comes to choosing fish bowls for your convenience store displays, you don’t have to choose just plastic or just glass. You can select a variety of fish bowls to use in different areas of your store. For example, if your store experiences a high volume of traffic on one area but a low volume in another, you might want to use plastic fish bowls where the most customers frequent, and glass fish bowls in the less busy areas.

5 Ideas for Using Fishbowl Containers in Your Business

Fishbowls are extremely popular containers for a variety of businesses. They’re available in a variety of sizes for your merchandise needs and, depending on your business’s atmosphere, you can find plastic fishbowl containers for fast-paced areas and glass fishbowl containers for locations where you want to add an extra bit of charm.

And nearly every kind of business can use them. Fishbowls are ideal for everything from retails stores to amusement parks – and everything in between!

1. Use Fishbowl Containers to Create Candy Displays

Fishbowls are great ways to create displays of candy and other small edible kinds of merchandise in your store.

Consider using a few small fishbowls for a countertop display of candy or gumballs for your customers to see as they check out, or create larger floor displays using wire display racks (see below) so you can display even more merchandise in larger fishbowls.

2. Organize Trial- and Travel-Sized Items with Fishbowl Containers

As mentioned above, fishbowls are popular tools for creating candy displays, but they’re also ideal for displaying other kinds of non-edible merchandise. As is the case with creating displays of candy and other edible items, you might want to use wire display racks with your bowls (see below).

If your store sells trial-or travel-sized items such as hygiene products, eyeglass repair kits, or sewing kits, you can display these items in fishbowls. You can even create displays of other normally small kinds of merchandise like key chains, lighters, and small children’s toys.

3. Pair Fishbowl Containers with Wire Display Racks

Fishbowl containers work great with other tools such as wire display racks. These racks are available in versions designed for countertop displays and floor displays and help you create attractive and convenient displays that work best with the amount of space allotted for your fishbowl displays.

Wire display racks also allow you to make your fishbowl container displays mobile! For example, you can obtain rolling wire display racks that allow you to easily move your display racks anywhere in your store, including outside for sidewalk sale events.

4. Use Fishbowl Containers as Collection Containers

Fishbowls are great for more than just offering your customers a product; you can also use them to collect items from your customers such as tips, business cards, amusement park tickets, and prize tokens.

Be sure to choose the material that will work the safest for how you intend to use the container. For example, if you manage a restaurant or tavern and want to include a container on each table or in your bar area, you might want to use glass fishbowls. If you plan to use your containers in high-energy, high-traffic areas such as amusement parks or carnivals, consider using plastic fishbowls.

5. Hold Prizes in Fishbowl Containers – Even Fish!

Speaking of amusement parks and carnivals, fishbowls are great ways to hold prizes for patrons who win games and challenges! True to their name, fishbowls are excellent for holding fish you offer as prizes, but they’re also perfect for organizing small inanimate prizes for your patrons to choose from.

Use the Most Popular Plastic Containers in Your Store

If you’re considering using plastic containers in your store for displaying edible items like candy or trail mix or non-edible merchandise like key chains or matchbooks, get familiar with some of the most popular kinds of containers – not because you want to use what everyone else is using, but because everyone else is using them for a reason! Knowing about these containers will help you choose which ones will work best for the merchandise you want to display as well as the space you have to work with.

Round and Fish Bowl

The words “round” and “fish bowl” are often used to describe the same kind of sphere-shaped plastic container, and these containers are perhaps the most common – and popular – of them all.

Keep in mind that the uses for fish bowl and round plastic containers go beyond the traditional retail business. For example, if you manage a pet store, you can use these containers to hold actual fish, as well as merchandise like collars designed for small dogs, sample packets of wipes designed to clean your pet when you’re on the go, and even special treats. These round or fish bowl containers are also great for amusement parks, where they can hold fish offered as prizes, ticket stubs, tokens, and other small trinkets for sale or to win.

Plastic containers shaped like spheres aren’t the best choices for saving space, so make sure you choose containers in sizes suitable for the space you have to work with. For example, if you have limited countertop space, it might work best if you only use one large round container or two or three small fish bowl containers.

Square and Rectangle

People sometimes use the words “square” and “rectangle” interchangeably to describe a plastic container with four flat sides, but generally a container with four flat sides of even widths and heights are better described as a square plastic container, while a container with four flat sides with uneven widths and heights are better described as rectangle plastic containers.

In square and rectangle containers, you can display anything that’s small enough to fit inside; however, as is the case with round containers, it’s best to choose items that aren’t extremely differently shaped than the containers themselves. For example, gumballs wouldn’t be the best merchandise choice for square plastic containers.

One of the best features of square and rectangle containers is their space-saving ability. You can place these containers side-by-side and back-to-back with virtually no room in between. Storeowners who have little display rack or countertop space to work with greatly benefit from containers shaped like squares and rectangles.

Hexagon

If you could blend round and square containers, hexagon plastic containers would be the result. Hexagon containers both save and take up space; they’re similar to sphere containers in that they can’t sit exactly side-by side, but they’re also similar to square plastic containers because you can position them back-to-back.

And, just like you’d expect from the offspring of round and square containers, these containers are ideal for nearly every kind of merchandise small enough to fit in them.

Get Creative with Fish Bowl Containers

Sphere containers, also called “fish bowl” containers due to their shape and common use, present a variety of possibilities for storing and displaying items. Most every kind of business, from convenience stores to amusement parks, can order these wholesale plastic containers and use them alone or as part of attractive displays to hold merchandise. Adding to their versatility is the fact that these containers are available as plastic or glass.

Sphere Containers Are Ideal for Convenience Stores

Aside from a home with a goldfish as a pet, convenience stores are probably the most common place for fish bowl containers. These stores can use sphere containers in a number of ways:

• Display food items like small pieces of candy, gumballs, or lollipops.
• Hold non-edible merchandise like lipstick, key chains, pens, pencils, lighters, and travel-sized hygiene products.
• Create attractive displays along the store’s counter tops. (“Cookie jar” style containers are great for these displays because their shape allows the containers to sit more closely which makes the most use of the counter top’s available space.)
• Situate the sphere containers on display racks throughout the convenience store. Because of the containers’ shapes, racks that offer the most space are best for these displays.
  

Keep in mind that convenience stores aren’t the only retail businesses that can use fish bowl containers. These containers also work well in drug stores and pharmacies and other specialty shops.

Keep Sphere Containers Near Your Restaurant’s Register

Whether you run a fast food restaurant or a more formal establishment, you can use sphere containers. Consider these ideas:

• Sphere containers near your restaurant’s register can display additional merchandise your customers might purchase on their way out. Fast food establishments and family-friendly restaurants often use these containers to hold promotional items such as small toys for promoting whatever popular movie happens to be in theaters at the time.
• Some restaurants also act as distributors of additional merchandise from national or local companies. You might use sphere containers near your register to hold lip balm, hand lotion, or small candy pieces.
• Bar-and-grill restaurants are popular among businesses, especially those that often take clients to lunch, and these kinds of restaurants often use fish bowl containers to collect business cards for contest and giveaway drawings.
  

Arcades, Carnivals, and Theme Parks Can Use Fish Bowl Containers

Many carnivals, theme parks, and amusement parks offer goldfish as prizes to patrons who win games; naturally, small fish bowl containers come in handy for these businesses. Some of them even give the fish to the winners in plastic bags full of water and then provide fish bowl containers for sale, which is convenient for the patrons because it saves them a trip to the local pet store.

These businesses, as well as establishments such as arcades, can also use sphere containers to hold tickets, tokens, and small prizes for winning games.

In these instances, plastic containers are generally more popular than glass containers. These kinds of settings are usually quite active, and plastic containers prevent the possibility of unsafe broken glass.