THE INFLUENCE OF KEY FACTORS OF VISUAL MERCHANDISING ON IMPULSIVE BUYING

Background: Modern retail is experiencing an accelerated transformation with online sales growth, further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, physical stores, especially grocery stores, are still the key to retail business and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Competition among retailers is becoming more pronounced and aggressive, and the expectations of modern consumers from retailers are stronger and more precise - they require the creativity of retailers in attracting and motivating them to enter their stores and return. Once consumers are in the store, the goal of retailers is to make them buy as much as possible. In modern retail, visual merchandising has become one of the crucial factors on the supply side by achieving a comfortable in-store environment and directing customers toward targeted shopping behaviour. The aim of this paper is to investigate which factors of visual merchandising are successful in encouraging impulsive consumer buying.

Methods: The article conducted an extensive review of the previous literature, while the primary research was conducted on 226 respondents, people who participated in purchases in large retail grocery stores (primarily hypermarkets), to conclude the factors influencing visual merchandising on impulsive consumer buying.

Results: The results of the regression analysis indicate that there is a statistically significant positive impact of secondary displays, price promotional labels, and in-store music on impulsive purchases, while the availability of prices over the Internet and weekly promotional catalogs have a negative impact on impulsive purchases.

Conclusions: This research provides clear instructions to grocery retailers, and their suppliers (manufacturers and distributors) who place their products in their stores about elements of visual merchandising that can significantly affect consumers’ impulsive buying and generate additional revenue. Although retailers receive direct positive feedback, it is also of equal importance for manufacturers (manufacturing brands), as they often participate in in-store visual merchandising processes.