That chaos or in-store clutter is symptomatic of the broader questions retail is facing. After a decade of declining sales and inspired by the success of the austere Apple stores, some retailers now believe that consumers are more likely to purchase when presented with a cleaner experience and fewer options. Cluttered stores may seem more likely to hold bargains but they also appear cheaper in the minds of many consumers. Big-box stores with lots of promotional offerings are finding that customers pick something up as they move through the store and then discard it later on as they find something else they like better. So that while clutter does increase sales, it also increases labor costs as stores have to keep returning this merchandise to the right place in the store.

The question is, what is the line between a store offering stuff to be “discovered” and a plain unattractive store that just looks bad?

As it turns out, it’s hard for stores to rid themselves of clutter. It’s easier for brand stores like H&M, Apple or Bose to be organized because they have one brand to sell, rather than competing brands and displays. In general merchandise stores like Macy’s, Target or Walmart, the displays and space in the aisle are contracted out. Pepsi, Coke and Mars may have all purchased floor space in the same quarter, and the store manager has a duty to make them all successful.

In 2009, the management of Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer by revenue, decided it needed less cluttered-looking stores, so it cleaned out its aisles, lowered its shelving, and tried to streamline its merchandise and in-store promotions. They were wrong. In the stores that tried the cleanup, sales declined, resulting in more than $1 billion in lost revenue, according to one industry estimate. Stuff went back into the aisle and sales went back up. (Undeterred, Walmart is trying again.) In 2012, Ron Johnson, a retail veteran of Target and Apple, tried to streamline the stores of J. C. Penney and to cut back on the promotional price cuts. Sales dropped 25 percent, and Mr. Johnson was out of a job the next year.

Why didn’t these efforts succeed? Consumers, as it turns out, are not so easy to figure out. If you ask customers if they think stores are too cluttered, the answer is a predictable yes. The problem is with the research methodology. Rather than just ask shoppers what they think they would like, I can follow someone through their shopping trip in a grocery or mass merchandise store like Walmart and Sam’s Club and then interview them as they load their bags into the car.