How Do You Design a Store Window With No Budget?

You don't need a budget. You need a deadline, a theme, and what's already in your stockroom.

I watched teams of store designers prove it at the IRDC convention's Iron Merchant competition - one hour, a white mannequin, a roll of toilet paper, and a bluebird.

For 20 years, IRDC has run Iron Merchant. Designers who build stores, displays and windows for a living sign up in teams of four to six.

They get one hour and almost no direction. 

Quick correction: in the video below, I say two and a half hours. I misspoke. The teams had one hour.

Then we judged the windows, and the winning team took the title of Iron Merchant.

What they had to work with

Every team got the same kit:

• A white mannequin and a colored wig
• An LED screen behind the mannequin
• Toilet paper and paper towels
• Rolls of colored craft paper
• Bedazzle jewels, which they had to use
• Sunglasses, if they wanted them
• Scissors, lighting and a speaker

The wild card was a 3D bluebird prop.

The theme was "I love ____." Each team filled in the blank.

The rules: no biting, no pushing, no shoving.

The rest of us watched over dinner and cocktails.

Every team needed a backdrop

Part of the challenge: each of the six teams had to come up with its own video background for the LED screen.

They brought their idea to a vendor, who searched online for a digital backdrop and uploaded it to their screen.

That backdrop did more work than anything they cut out of paper.

Three lessons for your windows

"I don't have the budget for windows."

Wrong. These teams built windows out of toilet paper and paper towels. The limit wasn't money - it was the clock, and an hour was enough.

Block one hour on your calendar this week. Pull what's in the stockroom and build.

"I don't know what to put in the window."

Start with a sentence, not a product. "I love ____" forced every team to pick one message, and every prop had to serve it.

A window that tries to say five things says none of them. Finish the sentence for your store before you pull a single item.

"I have to do it all myself."

The best idea I saw came from asking a vendor. Your reps have images, signage and fixtures sitting in a warehouse, and most will hand them over if you ask.

Ask.

And all of us voted on the results the following morning with a Vegas chip. Thanks to Joe Baer, the CEO and Creative Director of ZenGenius, for sponsoring this for twenty years. 

And big congrats to the Yellow Team and their leader, Gwen McKenzie, Associate Manager, Visual Merchandising at Starbucks

A window gets them in. Your floor closes the sale.

A good window stops a shopper on the sidewalk. What your associates say in the first minute decides whether that stop turns into a sale.

That's what SalesRX+ trains, then an unannounced mystery shop measures whether the behaviors changed. For more on windows and displays, see my retail merchandising guide.

Want to play Holiday Merchant in your store?

I'm thinking of running a version of this for independent retailers this holiday season. I'm calling it Holiday Merchant.

I'd mail you a kit. You'd have a week or two to build your window and send me a photo.

By entering, you agree your window can run in my newsletter, where readers vote for the winner.

Tell me if you'd play.

How do you design a store window with no budget?

Give yourself a deadline, one theme, and what's already in your stockroom. At IRDC's Iron Merchant, designers built judged windows in one hour from a mannequin, toilet paper, paper towels and craft paper. The limit is time and focus, not money.

What is Iron Merchant at IRDC?

Iron Merchant is a competition the International Retail Design Conference has run for 20 years. Teams of four to six designers get one hour, a set of required props and a theme to build a window, which is then judged.

What should a store window theme be?

One sentence a shopper can finish. Iron Merchant's theme was "I love ____," and every prop had to support that one message.