A STUDY ON THE IMPACT OF VISUAL MERCHANDISING ON IMPULSE BUYING BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Impulse buying can be defined as a “spontaneous, immediate purchase without pre- shopping intentions either to buy a specific product category or to fulfil a specific need

or desire”. The topic has been a key research concern among marketers as it is a pervasive aspect of consumer behaviour, also due to its potential in the marketing world. As a result of a number of researches and studies, impulsive buying is now recognized as a significant behaviour in apparel industry and possess a major determinant of sales and purchases at retails. Purpose: The primary objective of the study is “to explore, analyze and explain the relationship between respondents’ impulse buying behavior and various types of visual merchandising namely in-store form/mannequin display, window display, floor merchandising, and promotional signage” used by retailers. Because of swelling competition and therefore the merchandise resemblance at retail stores, retailers nowadays are leveraging visual merchandising to distinguish their products from others’ or furthermore to attract the customers to the retail shops and create a desire among them to purchase the product. The study aims to “identify and analyze the relationship between four types of visual merchandising and impulse buying of customers” qualitatively and quantitatively with the help of well-structured research methodology. Methodology/approach: Descriptive Research Methods have been used for this paper. Both Qualitative as well as Quantitative approach have been used. Qualitative approach helped in understanding the in- depth emotions and perception of the customers while Quantitative approach provided a statistical and mathematical aspect to the study and helped in providing empirical validation to the result. The research is

based on primary data collected from a sample of 127 respondents through a well- structured questionnaire. The tool that was administered for the analysis and

interpretation of data is SPSS. Going through the previous studies and papers, “respondents’ impulse buying behavior has been taken as dependent variable while the four types of visual merchandising namely in-store form/mannequin display, window display, floor merchandising, and promotional signage have been taken as independent variable.”

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Findings: The research was conducted primarily “to understand the relationship between respondents’ impulse buying behavior and various types of visual merchandising taken as independent variable”. The study outcomes statistically established that there is a significant and strong affiliation between customers’ impulse buying behavior and floor merchandising and promotional signage. The statistical outcome from regression analysis indicated that although, “in-store form/mannequin display and window display do not significantly influence customers’ impulse buying behavior”, the results still proposed correlation between all the four independent variables and consumers’ impulse buying behavior.