THE TEMPTATIONS OF STORE WINDOW DRESSING
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2021-01-14
Language
en
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Since the rise of online shopping, the transition to more experience-oriented shopping in city centers started (Sachdeva & Goel, 2015). The aim of this research is to help clothing brands with the design of the window display by focusing on different customer shopping situations. Store windows are the first impression a customer gets from a brand store and therefore assumed to influence store entry decisions. Whether this results in approach or avoidance behavior might be influenced by shopping motive and cognitive abilities (brand familiarity). The research framework is organized based on the stimulus-organism-response model. Two studies have been conducted to answer the research question. First, a quasi-field experiment of 391 structured observations, resulted in the finding that the type of window display does not affect store entry when not taking any situational factors into account. The second study was a scenario-based experiment. Participants, aged between 18-35, were exhibited to two shopping motivation scenarios and asked to fill in their store entry decision after seeing a (manipulated) window display. Again, the influence of type of window display on store entry was still non-significant. Furthermore, the results showed that brand familiarity had a positive effect on the relationship between window display type and store entry. When controlling for high brand familiarity, there was no significant effect for type of window display on store entry. This changed when shoppers had a recreational shopping motive. Artistic window displays led in that case to stronger store approach behaviour, compared to product-focused window displays. For task-oriented shoppers, the type of window display did not influence store entry, even when controlling for high brand familiarity. Whereas shoppers often indicated strong store entry intentions towards the artistic-focused window displays, entry decisions for the product-focused window displays remained vague. To conclude, for clothing brand stores the best strategic option is to implement an artistic-focused window display. This is substantiated by the fact that shopping entry is higher after seeing the artistic window display (vs. product-focused window displays). Especially, as a rememberable window display eases store entry decision making and in turn is also likely to increase brand store familiarity
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen