Rant: the display expert who told me to skip bright colors

Last month I was setting up a window for our store's poetry sale and this guy, calls himself a visual merchandiser, told me to go with muted tones and lots of blank space. I followed his advice, put out three books on a bare wooden crate, and it looked like a funeral display. Two days later a kid walked past, glanced at it, and kept going. Swapped in a stack of orange hardcovers with a silly cutout of a cat, and we sold 14 copies in one afternoon. Has anyone else gotten fancy window advice that just flat-out missed what real people stop for?

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anthony_wells13d ago

Have you ever noticed how the people who give design advice never actually have to sell anything? I used to be the same way, I thought minimal and clean was the classy look that every store should go for. But then I watched a customer walk right past a beautiful display I spent hours on, only to stop and buy something from a messy, bright table near the register. That was the moment it clicked for me. Real people are not walking into a store to admire a gallery, they are looking for something that catches their eye and makes them feel something. Your orange cat cutout did that, that bare crate did not. The fancy advice sounds smart, but it ignores the fact that most folks want color and personality, not a museum.

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