Research Paper
Year: 2020 | Month: June | Volume: 7 | Issue: 6 | Pages: 453-464
Tripodal of Visual Merchandising in Fashion Apparel Retail Stores: A Study
Mohanraj P1, Gopalakrishnan S2
1Professor, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Kannur.
2Head-Resource Centre, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Chennai.
Corresponding Author: Mohanraj P
ABSTRACT
In this millennium the organized fashion retailing is no longer selling, displaying the apparels or the customer service where Visual merchandising plays an important role. Visual merchandising is a presentation of merchandise to best-selling advantage and for maximum traffic exposure, plus projection of customer “ready-to-buy”. Visual merchandising creates the in-store environment that supports the retailer’s marketing and merchandising strategies which sets the mood, invites, attracts, welcomes and informs the shoppers. In this study an attempt has been made to identify the awareness among the consumers about the visual merchandising in particular to the fashion apparel retail stores. About 175 questionnaires were distributed randomly to the customers of different types of fashion apparel stores in malls situated in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Out of which 149 were responded. The response rate works out to 85.14%. The concept of visual merchandising has been analyzed using 13 variables such as Color & lighting; Fragrance & music; Interior wallpaper &carpets; Thematic display: the story behind; Arrangement; Ease of access; Employee team; Variety & Volume; Arousal; Dominance; Perceived Store Luxury; Pleasure and Store choice in a five point scale. The alpha value for all the 13 variables works out to 0.8579 which indicates that the variables are good for the study. The factorial method of data reduction technique enabled to group the variables in to three components and the components were named as Ambience/Décor; Merchandise; and Perceived Store Luxury, Emotions and Choice. The alpha value for all the three factors were 0.7736; 0.8100 and 0.8250 which indicates that all the variables are acceptable in nature for further study. The first three preferences of Ambience/décor were Color & lighting; Fragrance & music; and Interior, wallpaper &carpets. In the case of merchandising the preference were Variety & volume of merchandise; ease of access to merchandise; and Employee team. In the case of Perceived Store Luxury, the preferences were Perceived Store Luxury; Emotions and Store Choice. In this study SEM model has been employed to indicate the strength of the relationships between the factors taken for the study. In all the study indicates Fragrance, Interior and arrangement of merchandise were expected to have top preference.
Keywords: Visual Merchandising, Ambience/Décor; Merchandise, Perceived Store Luxury, Arousal
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