Whatever happened to retail window displays?

Back in the heyday of retail, when people really shopped at stores, they would walk down the street and be mesmerized by amazing window displays showing the latest seasonal presentation of clothes or a compete picnic scene, including ants, under paper mache trees with plastic apples and a family of mannequins. I actually remember seeing all the TVs in the Sears store all facing out at once with multiple programs on at the same time and tv aerials everywhere with very hand-made signs that said “connection to the world.” Store window displays were an essential part of retail marketing to drive foot traffic.

This was the time when retail experience was immediate and visual as you passed one storefront after another. The retailer’s goal was to see if they could pull you into the store using what was displayed in the window. What ever happened to those days?

Well, hardly any place we shop these days actually has windows. Most of our shopping is done in big box stores, malls or the internet.  The world of merchandising to customers by attracting them to your brand because you have fun, unusual and eye-catching displays is gone for the most part. If they exist at all they’re on the home pages of e-commerce sites such as J Crew, Abercrombie and Fitch and Target. These brands are creating web “window displays” to merchandise products on their home pages, to draw you in with brands and displays. However, this is not exactly the same experience as standing in front of an exciting window display, and it’s just too easy to go to another site.

These new window displays try to dazzle you with fun, draw you into their brand and then push product. But the good e-commerce sites realize you’ll only take five seconds to decide “is this the right place for me?” before you jump ship. They need to hold your attention and have you remember them. So the retailer needs to prepare the shopper by integrating all of the brand touch points – the e-commerce site, the store front, the catalog, print ads and online ads.

To stand out,  you must sell in all channels. Some companies try to do this but few do it well. Crate & Barrel and Anthropologie are excellent examples. They create experiences that draw you with the visual temptation, just like the good old storefronts but with more pizazz and personalization. And they do it at their stores, online and in their catalogs.

Maybe the future will hold something better for on-the-street brand encounters like window displays, but it may not not be through the venue of a traditional brick and mortar retail store.