Calibrate Store Congestion & Clutter

Store crowding interacting with store messiness brews shopper confusion. Confused shoppers buy less. Those findings from studies at University of Illinois-Springfield and Istanbul Technical University do have important exceptions, though. Know how to keep a balance in the brew.
     The researchers defined shopper confusion as consisting of irritation, inefficiency, and feelings of helplessness. Store crowding with other shoppers caused increases in all three of these somewhat, but store messiness increased the three significantly more. The hit to spending was greater for recreational than for task-oriented shopping. It can take the form of postponing or abandoning purchase decisions, failure to notice in-store discounts and impulse buys, and not wanting to shop at the store again.
     The clear implication is to minimize store congestion and clutter. Yet a busy store is itself more profitable, and heavy foot traffic can crowd the aisles and at least temporarily mess up the merchandise. In addition, other research finds upsides. When shoppers expect crowding, such as during holiday shopping and landmark product introductions, the congestion adds excitement to both task-oriented and recreational shopping.
     Researchers at Lehigh University and Drexel University pointed out that the impact of crowding depends on the prior experiences of the consumer shopping in crowds, the expectations of the consumer about the degree of crowding they’ll encounter, and the personality structure of the consumer. Those studies were conducted before the COVID-19 epidemic, which adds another layer of complexity to the effects of potentially contagion-filled crowding and contamination-filled clutter.
     Messiness in a mass merchandise outlet or popup store projects the impression of great price breaks. Added to this, although shoppers as a general rule seek simplicity, a certain amount of complexity is needed in order to maintain shopper interest. Introduce enough incongruity, enough surprise, so that the shopper slows down for a moment to appreciate the sales message. If the layout is overly sterile, the viewer processes it all immediately and then moves on—beyond the range of a possible add-on or upgrade.
     Calibrate to fit your situation. But in all cases, head off the confusion. Have good signage and accessible salespeople. Maintain variety within product categories. According to studies at Columbia University and University of British Columbia, when shoppers from Western cultures are in tight spaces, they want greater variety. If they have fewer choices, they'll become less comfortable. But arrange product selections horizontally rather than vertically, since this eases shopper scanning.

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Use Signage to Categorize Items