1) It is shocking I know, but there is a method behind NOT putting the overly priced shoe´s actual price gleaming in the store window. This is because the idea is that the customer will not sprint away from the 600 peso platform Birkenstock that you are advertising. The 600 peso sign is more daunting then the idea that you might be 4 inches taller in a matter of minutes. One then simply puts the whole idea of even trying-on the shoe, and heaven forbid buying the shoe out of mind. Instead they gaze longingly at what might have been, had the price tag not been sitting beside those jewels of unique sandals. (For those of you not up-to-date with Argentine fashion, these beauties come in every neon color imaginable for a mere $120USD and resemble these:)
2) It is a way of setting goals. There is nothing more inspiring than someone allocating their money to something that they genuinely want and have saved for. Since as I mentioned previously, there is no hiding the price of anything in Argentina, window shopping is a way for them gradually gather money, passing by their goal, day after day, until they muster the courage, 600 pesos in hand, to go in, try on and carry out those dreamy trainers. Besides, no one likes a tease, and trying on something that you´re never going to buy, is rude to the store manager. Argentina absolutely does not cater to customer service. If anything, you are a burden and trying on shoes that you aren´t going to buy is obnoxious. They will have no problem letting you know this.
Now this whole rant is leading up to why I decided to write this in the first place. Window shopping, reasonable or not, is annoying to all other pedestrians in the vicinity. There is nothing more that irks me, when I am running late to work, and am briskly walking to be abruptly stopped by someone who at the last second has noticed a 50 percent off sign. Let me be clear, like moving traffic on a street, there are rules to the way that pedestrian traffic should run. It means that you walk on the side walk, stop at the crosswalks and leave the side walk without being too pushy to leave the sidewalk traffic. The whole flow of traffic is utterly destroyed when there are window shoppers. If you were driving a car and you saw something that you were interested in on the scenery alongside the highway, you would not come to a complete stop in the middle of the motorway would you? The same goes for window shopping, you either exit the sidewalk to get an up close view or you continue with traffic because like cars, and people, things in motion tend to stay in motion: widow shopping causes human crashing. Unlike cars, people do not have blinkers or brake lights. There is no way for the person behind you to know that you are planning to stop to look at the newest fashion, or clatily scad mannequins. It is not only irritating for the shopper to be bumped into but it is even more irritating for the person behind to be the bumper.
Were Christina open to any kind of suggestions, considering she puts a new sketchy law into place without warning on the regular, I would suggest tinted windows for all retail stores.
