Clutter

Quite often you will find store owners that want to show case as much of their product as possible because they fear that if they don’t show their clients all of their selection they might not come in. This was the template model for most stores in the 1950s. You just stacked a bunch of the same product in pyramids throughout the entire stores windows -  which meant you saw little of what was inside. Nowadays the focus is creating a highlight of what can be found within. The line of direction the eye should travel is to the product(s) directly in the window, which should then invite the customer to see what is inside the store. This creates the intrigue that will bring them into the store and be engulfed with the view of all the wonders the store has inside. And who knows, maybe they will be even inclined to buy a thing or two! In my line of work, I am frequently faced with the challenge of trying to explain to my clients softly that ‘less IS better'. In some cases its like trying to explain to a hoarder that they do not need all those things. No matter how much they seem to understand throughout the process of your giving their store a ‘facelift’, how much they agree and go along with all your changes, there is always one that will try and sneak in a couple more items once you are done and gone. But I try and explain to my clients the exact reasons why the cluttered window doesn’t work, and why careful placement and arrangement of products, colors and props are important to pay close attention to. I mean, that is what we VMs are hired for in the after all - Am I right?
Why is a cluttered and poorly arranged window a sure miss for potential clients you ask. Yes of course they can see you have plenty of product in your window, but a person can only see and absorb so much information through their eyes before it becomes an overload for the processing of all that information. There is a reason why we have an aversion to clutter -  we can’t see the forest for the trees! If you have so many items in your window, a person can’t really see what might be the highlight of the product(s) that you have. They have no chance of becoming interested because there is so much to look at that they don’t even want to bother. It takes just a few seconds for the average consumer to look at a window and determine whether they are intrigued or if they will move on. And window shopping has become somewhat of a favorite pass time for many of them, so you want to optimize that potential. Quite often it is not necessarily the better price or the quality of the item that will draw them into your store, but how well the product is presented to them. History has shown that presentation has a direct impact on sales. We often will read of successful and not so successful marketing campaigns in Quarterly market reviews; and all these tie in with how well the audience could relate to the slogans, the ideas and most importantly - The Image.
To perfectly describe a situation of a cluttered store, I had a client who owned an eyeglass store they had inherited from their father. This was a family business that had been established since the 1950s. Part of its charm was the countless amount of stock they had left over from its former years. The father had stored away frames that had gone out of style at the time, and fortunately for the current owner the retro look has come in, which has provided a vast market for all these frames. The owner was overwhelmed with stock and was very keen to show all the different kinds that were available. Now when I went in to discuss their vision and hopes for the window, they immediately acknowledged the clutter - there was a serious over flow of glasses presented throughout the entire store. They also explained their dilemma - they had no room to put them anywhere else to keep them out of sight. The fact that they understood that there was a problem with the clutter was a step in the right direction; that they didn’t know how to handle it was not an uncommon issue. We all are faced with this problem even in our own homes. That is why the market for optimal organizing units has grown over the years. My challenge was to come up with a solution that would allow them to keep the excess of glasses/frames where they were but have them be aesthetically hidden or stored. My solution: I built a wooden stand that would fit in the glass cases they had sitting in the windows, dating from back in the 60s most likely. These stands sat in an angle and would rest perfectly on the rim of the case so that there was an empty space beneath it. I had another wood board covering the back. This provided a perfect little hidden space underneath where they could store all the extra frames and keep them out of plane sight and still have easy access to them. The stands were all painted bright summer colors, in line with the season, and provided a very clean and chic look that allowed for the window shoppers to actually see the special details of the gorgeous frames. I didn’t need anything too complex. If I added too much more, we would have been back to our original problem. Sometimes the simplest of designs is the best solution.  You need to be able to gauge what works best for the product(s) and space you have, and all of it must be in line with the stores image. Not always an easy feat. At times finding the simplest solution is the hardest thing to do.