I went to Barcelona for a family holiday.

That was the official story, anyway.

In reality, taking me near a telecom store and expecting me not to look at it properly is a bit like taking a Labrador past a butcher’s window and asking it to stay focused on the architecture.

We were walking through a beautiful and busy town about 20kms outside Barcelona when I spotted two telecom stores directly opposite each other. Orange on one side. Vodafone on the other. Two global brands, one strong retail street and plenty of passing traffic.

Naturally, I stopped.

My family kept walking.

I had actually planned to go inside and use my Meta Glasses to capture the customer journey discreetly, but they had broken that day - too much time wearing them in the pool (they claim they’re waterproof, after 4 pairs in as many years I can assure you they are not, well maybe a little bit!). That was probably an intervention from the retail gods, or possibly my family sabotaging them so I would behave like a normal tourist for once.

So I took photographs instead.

By this point, everyone was staring at me. There was laughter, eye-rolling and the unmistakable sense that I had about three minutes before the family holiday became a family revolt. They were also getting hangry, which meant my detailed retail assessment had to compete with the far more urgent question of where we were eating.

I took the pictures quickly, promised food and moved on.

But the contrast between the two storefronts stayed with me, because they demonstrated two very different ways of getting telecom retail wrong.

The Orange store is dark, closed and uninviting.

The biggest object in the window is a large black screen which appears to be switched off. It dominates the frontage, blocks the view into the store and creates the immediate impression that something is not working.

That is not ideal for any retailer. For a technology retailer, it is unforgivable.

A blank screen does not simply look untidy. It raises questions. Is the store open? Is the screen broken? Is the technology unreliable? Does anyone inside care?

The entrance does not help. It is narrow, dark and framed by a deep orange tunnel that feels more like a security vestibule than a warm invitation. You can barely see the people, products or activity inside.

Visibility matters in retail because it reduces uncertainty. Customers want to know what is waiting for them before they cross the threshold. Is someone available? Is the store busy? Will I be pounced on? Can I browse? Is this a sales location, a service centre or somewhere that mainly sells prepaid SIM cards?

Orange answers none of those questions.

It also manages to fill the remaining window space with football imagery, player posters, fibre messaging and prepaid SIM signage without ever making it clear what the store actually wants the customer to do.

There is plenty of communication, but very little meaning.

Vodafone makes the opposite mistake.

It is open. It is bright. You can see further into the store and there is more visible activity. If I had to choose between open and closed, I would always take open.

But Vodafone appears to have mistaken visibility for volume.

There are pavement boards, window graphics, product messages, price points, device finance, broadband, mobile, TV, international offers, football and several different promotional displays competing for attention.

It is shouting everything, which means the customer hears nothing.

A strong storefront should answer three questions almost instantly:

Why should I stop?

Why should I enter?

What should I do next?

Vodafone gives you enough information to occupy a long train journey, but very little that can be understood in the few seconds available as somebody walks past.

The wider entrance should be an advantage, but even that has been compromised. Promotional boards sit on both sides of the doorway, narrowing the approach and creating clutter before the customer has even entered.

That is not just a design problem. It creates friction for wheelchair users, parents with pushchairs, customers carrying bags and people trying to enter while someone else is leaving.

The frontage also looks tired. There are damaged surfaces, visible cabling, marks around the entrance and discarded material on the pavement.

This stuff matters more than many retailers realise.

A telecom company is asking customers to trust it with expensive devices, personal information, home connectivity and contracts that may last two years or more. If the store cannot keep its own entrance clean and controlled, what quiet message does that send about everything behind it?

Orange hides the store physically.

Vodafone hides it behind marketing.

Orange feels closed and unclear.

Vodafone feels open and chaotic.

Neither gives the customer a simple, compelling reason to enter.

There is also almost no product theatre in either window. Where is the latest handset? The connected home? The wearable technology? The demonstration? The experience that makes someone stop, point and say, “What is that?”

Instead, both stores reduce telecoms to monthly payments, speeds, offers and campaign messaging.

That turns the category into a commodity.

When the storefront leads with price, customers learn to compare price. When it leads with devices, experiences and useful outcomes, customers begin to imagine ownership.

That is a much more powerful commercial conversation.

The most frustrating part is that neither store needs an expensive redesign.

Orange could improve quickly by switching on the screen, opening the sightline, reducing the football clutter and making the interior feel visible and alive.

Vodafone could remove half the messaging, clear the doorway, repair the frontage and choose one dominant proposition.

One reason to stop.

One reason to enter.

One reason to buy.

That is the job of the storefront.

Not to satisfy every product manager who wants their campaign in the window. Not to display every offer currently available. Not to turn the glass into a printed version of the company website.

The storefront is a conversion tool.

It has a few seconds to turn passing traffic into curiosity, and curiosity into action.

These two stores sit directly opposite each other, yet neither truly wins. One is too closed to attract people. The other is too cluttered to persuade them.

And somewhere nearby, my family was still waiting for dinner.

They got fed, eventually.

The storefronts still need work.

If you would like a fresh, commercially focused assessment of your retail storefronts, customer journey or wider telecom estate, contact me. Sometimes the quickest improvements are sitting in plain sight, right outside the front door.

Amplify: straight talk on telecom retail, every fortnight, from someone who’s worked in 75+ countries.

Read next: “How Telcos Will Sell in 2032”

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