I just stopped running in the opposite direction after seeing this photo long enough to comment on the photo. The concept is good, educate the consumer is a very important way to keep your customer base and have a credible reputation. An important evaluation for a retailer is what will be the return on investment by giving up selling space for demonstration space. I do not believe that this item can generate a great amount of volume and illustrating another building material such as deck stain sample colors would bring more dollars into the register.
Retailers have a moral and legal obligation not to mislead a consumer. This footing does not meet any code I am familiar with. You are correct in saying this needs to be a minimum of 3′-6″ below the ground to prevent it from breaking up and cause a failure in the deck structure. For the record, I have found more home closings turn to disaster because the deck was not filed and did not have an inspection to declare it safe.
Back to retail, love the concept, pick your battles, and be sure the message will not lead you to a litigation that could put you out of business.
So I was saying based on the images in this blog of wire bins. This concept of display is perfect for the category of goods it is showing. In the case of Walmart, Target or CVS the savings to the chain can exceed $100000 a year based on just the 9 bins shown in this photo.A wise retailer once explained the basis for this claim is that the only way retailers can make money theses days is to cut overhead. Almost any product is so well shopped including imports from China that the difference of an item from chain to chain is negligible. Therefore the gross profit is the lowest it can be and the only way to make money is to handle the product more efficiently.If the bin was not used and a shelf was the alternate solution, I estimate the following savings:at $10.00/hr labor rate, and 3 minutes more to load product onto a shelf per section, times 10 reloadings of product per item over a year equals $4.80 per item. 9 Items shown in photo times 2500 stores comes to $108000 in labor saved.Design is a business decision first and an esthetic consideration after. Look at the whole picture before landing on what you consider the best display solution.