Impact of Visual Merchandising on Customers’ Purchase Decision

Abstract

This paper sets out to discuss how the in-store retail variables affect the buying behavior of consumers through the mediating variable of purchase intention, as well as the effects of visual merchandising. The study was carried out to fill the gap in the existing literature, which frequently presupposes the existence of a direct correlation between store setting and purchasing behavior, and fails to consider the inner processes of psychological decision making. This relationship is especially relevant to comprehend in the context of modern retail where consumer behavior is becoming more and more multifaceted and experience-oriented. The quantitative research design was applied based on a structured questionnaire and was modeled with the help of the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The researchers determined the correlations of several constructs, such as display set, signage, storage environment, variety, eye level product display, visual merchandising, purchase intention, and purchase decision made by consumers. The results indicate that visual merchandising does not have a significant direct impact on purchase decision (β = 0.017), whereas purchase intention has a significant positive impact (β = 0.538). Also, the model explains the purchase intention (R2 = 0.021) and purchase decision (R2 = 0.290) with low and moderate power, respectively. These findings suggest that the buying decisions are always influenced more by internal motives as opposed to external store stimuli. The study is important because it redefines the aspect of visual merchandising as an indirect influence and it shows the role of psychological factors in consumer behavior. It offers worthwhile research that can be included in the future studies to include emotional and experience variables into an in-depth model.