Creating a showcase that sells is part of a strategy that must take into account different elements, objectives and goals.

A showcase to sell must meet certain requirements:

• Communicate a clear message;
• Get noticed and do it in style;
• Develop the right balance between the product on display and scenic elements;
• Make yourself remembered;
  all discussed in Part I.

In this second part we will talk about :

• visual path;
• organization of full and empty spaces;
• creation of triangularity and depth;
• featured communication.

5) Always keep in mind the visual path to take.

Keep in mind that the human eye generally makes well-defined movements. The look in the window, starting from the center, eye height (1.50/1.60m), tends to go right, then left, then down and finally to the other. The diagram below will help you to better understand how to shift the attention of those who observe the window:

From this diagram, you can draw many suggestions on how to position the products and scenic elements. You must accompany the passerby in a harmonious dance inside the showcase, so that no corner of the same remains unexplored.

6) Organize the full and empty spaces in the showcase.

Just as it happens inside the stores, where the product on display necessarily needs “empty” spaces, where the eyes can rest and the attention can be resolved, so also in the shop window the rule of full and empty spaces is fundamental.  

Everything goes back to point  1) “don’t fill the display case too much”. 

The human eye loses interest if it is constantly involved in the observation of something, so give the right space to each element, without ever forgetting the spaces of “rest”, of emptiness. 

To clarify the concept I will give you an extratemporal example of what happens every day. 

Each of us will have a friend, a colleague or a weary relative, right? Very well, the weary ones talk and talk and talk, whether you are interested or not they talk. In their river of words, they don’t even realize they’ve lost your attention to the second sentence.

Now, imagine you’re at the theater or in front of a movie, the actors of the pauses make an art out of it, if they say the same lines in a row, without ever changing their tone of voice, they would be like the logorrheic, but no, the pauses give meaning to the conversations, give them a charm and force us to keep our attention.

Ok, forgive the metaphor, but I hope you understand the meaning of the above.

Create spaces of decompression, let this poor client breathe, as well as in the window also inside, give him the time and the way to walk freely through the space, without having the feeling of suffocating.

7) Create triangularity and depth.

For every display case it is fundamental not only the what, but also how to display. 

A row of mannequins on the same line would be as interesting as an empty display case.

Learn how to create triangulation and depth in a display case.

What did I say? No, you won’t need an engineering degree to understand the concept, don’t worry.

By triangulation I mean that to create an interesting display case it is essential to play with different heights, triangulated correctly, i.e. place the highest element in the center (or just off-center as suggested in point 3) and place the other elements laterally lower. This scheme is at the base of each display case.

E.g. of triangulation in the shop window

The depth, on the other hand, you will obtain it by not positioning the elements in a single axis parallel to the display case.

You must distribute mannequins or scenographic elements in perspective, as if you were in a painting, without ever forgetting the direction of the customer (if there was one that prevailed), i.e. bearing in mind that if most of the flow of people come from the right, for example, then you will decentralize the display case to the left, to make it more visible and vice versa. 

E.g. of showcases in which the depth is skilfully realized

Observed from the base how the scenographic elements are distributed, they are all staggered and at different distances from the showcase, never in a row. All in perfect harmony, as in nature, “perfection in apparent chaos”. 

The position of the staircase, of the two, overlapping but slightly offset boxes, the positioning of the product, nothing is left to chance, but everything is cleverly displayed and organized in space and angled differently to create movement in the showcase.

8) Communicate in the showcase.

Whether it is a sale, new arrivals, a special product, Christmas or any other holiday, promotion or launch, we can communicate in the window.

This will allow us to create a “call to action” (as marketers like to call it today), which is an immediate reaction of the customer to a stimulus cleverly conveyed, in the hope that it will turn into a sale.

Let’s not forget, in the shop window we can also use words, signs, images, devices and lights to catch the eye and give an immediate message and why not, make the customer interact with the store itself. But I will deal with new technologies in another article, because new scenarios deserve to be discussed with due attention.

The list of good practices in the showcase would not end there, but since I do not want to end up like a weary friend, I believe that the points discussed so far are the basis of any good work.

The fundamental point to remember is that behind a shop window there must not be the anxiety to display everything, to be noticed at all costs or, even worse, to display products just to fill it, because then it would be far more useful to darken it with a great glass window.

The showcase windows are an integral part of a global strategy that should be an integral part of any activity, from small to large.

The shop window is a powerful means of communication, the closest to the customer; the attention that we have to put into its display must be maximum, just as maximum must be the thought behind it.

My personal experience

If you want to continue to address this topic and understand how to reason when you find yourself alone, in front of an empty window or, even worse, badly set up, then continue reading. I will tell you an example that has happened in my career.

I had to set up a very large space for a client for the number of products offered. A space that, besides being a shop, was also an office, a service agency and the headquarters of three other activities, a real chaos. 

What were they offering? 

It took me days and days to figure it out! They made customization of various gadgets (covers, pens, notepads, backpacks, business cards, etc. …) and also offered a range of services potentially useful to any business, such as flyer distribution, event organization, site construction, CEO, SEM, etc.. as well as being a digital printing center. 

I was supposed to take care of the shop windows. Well, can you imagine the situation? I’ll describe it for you…you didn’t have a precise idea internally of what you wanted to communicate, nor what you wanted to display, so, from a simple shop window, the work turned into 360° image coordination, but, leaving this aspect out and going back to the shop windows, what helped me to realize the final work?

But “simple”! a precise idea of what I wanted to do.

After reordering the ideas, giving a line of corporate coordinated image (site, FB, IG, business cards, service information brochures, etc..) I analyzed the product available in stock, I decided to create graphics, with a theme that could help the customer not to get lost in the myriad of potentially available objects. I selected some gadgets and decided that the first showcase would have as a theme the dogs, the second the world of sport, then the world of the office etc..

Thanks to the focus on a single theme, I selected only a few products, I had them customized with writing/images studied ad hoc for that theme and only afterward I thought about the realization of the showcase.

I only needed a few cubes of different heights and sizes and a beautiful glass window, to create a clean, attractive, effective and also in line with the times, since for one particular window I used the Instagram screen to attract attention and speak a “language” that everyone knows by now.

Dear readers, the showcase is not a sheet of glass through which I can “take a look at the shop” or pause to look at the product on display, the showcase is a strategic space where all the techniques, analyses, projections and marketing strategies must be studied, synthesized and materialized. A physical place in which to embody one’s brand identity.

Showcases are created to bring the passer-by into their world, excite them, fascinate them, intrigue them and only then stimulate them to enter this world wisely “described” in the showcase and induce them to buy.

Making a showcase is within everyone’s reach, making an effective showcase is the real challenge.

Good luck!