Applying to the foodservice industry the visual merchandise (VMD) used in many other industries, this study develops measurement items for VMD and defines and organizes factors which customers feel important. It is also intended to give suggestions to...
Applying to the foodservice industry the visual merchandise (VMD) used in many other industries, this study develops measurement items for VMD and defines and organizes factors which customers feel important. It is also intended to give suggestions to help foodservice companies develop effective marketing strategies by measuring attitudes toward VM using the Fishbein’s model, investigating the correlation between the consumer’s attitude toward VM, and their attitude toward brands and purchasing intention, and assisting companies in establishing differentiated corporate images perceived by customers.
This study consists of the development of a tool for measuring visual merchandizing and empirical study of the VMDdeveloped. For the tool development, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted in the first stage and an ethnographic interview in the second, experimental, stage as an exploratory study. In the third stage, another survey was conducted using questionnaires consisting of questions derived from the results of the previous two stages. The result of this study shows many dimensions of visual merchandizing: harmony, attractiveness, relevance, popularity, functionality, and reliability. Visual merchandizing has been much studied in the fashion industry, but very little in the foodservice. It is very meaningful to develop a measuring tool which uses visual merchandizing as an effective strategy of marketing, and can deliver differentiated corporate images to consumers rather than act only as a way of promoting sales through visual presentation.
The results of the empirical study can be summarized as follows: First, the attitude towardvisual merchandizing has a significant influence on that toward a brand. Significant results were found statistically in some factors of visual merchandizing like reliability, harmony, and attractiveness. These are key factors that have great effect on shaping the attitude of foodservice consumers toward brands. Second, the attitude toward brands of family restaurants, fast food stores, and coffee shops has a statistically significant influence on the purchasing intention. The attitude of foodservice consumers toward brands plays a role in shaping purchasing intention. Third, the attitude toward visual merchandizing has an effect on the purchasing intention.
Of all the factors of the attitude toward visual merchandizing, those of reliability, harmony, and attractiveness are the ones in which statistically significant results were found. In other words, when the attitude of foodservice consumers toward visual merchandizing plays a role in shaping purchasing intention, these factors have a great influence on it.
This study implies the following points and makes some suggestions for marketing strategies.
First, unlike previous studies, this study regards physical environment, atmosphere, and display of stores as the elements of visual merchandizing. It defines which elements consumers consider important and attempts to establish a system to introduce them in an effective way.
Second, visual merchandizing has been much studied in the fashion industry, but very little in the foodservice. It is very meaningful to develop a measuring tool which uses visual merchandizing as an effective strategy of marketing, and can deliver differentiated corporate images to consumers rather than act only as a way of promoting sales through visual presentation.
Third, in measuring the attitude toward visual merchandizing using the Fishbein’s model of attitudes, the values are derived from the product of the consumer’s belief about salient attributes, that is, importance, and the consumer’s evaluation of the attributes, that is, satisfaction, rather than from simply measuring and evaluating satisfaction and importance. The attitude of consumers toward visual marketing can be evaluated much more accurately using these values.
Fourth, of all the factors of the attitude toward visual merchandizing, harmony is the onethat has the greatest influence on shaping the attitude toward brands in all three sectors, family restaurants, fast food stores, and coffee shops. Consumers take the overall harmony of colors, interiors, exteriors, and lightings in the store as the key variables for shaping the positive attitude toward the brand. Reliability, consisting of reliabilities on employees, safety and sanitization, and messages from the advertisements in the store, also plays an important role in shaping the attitude toward the brand. The results suggest that marketers should pay more careful attention to the harmony as the key factor in shaping the attitude toward brands in all the foodservice sectors, influencing intention to purchase, prompting recommendations to third parties, and finally attaining customer loyalty. To do this, a direction should be established for active marketing.
This study has an important meaning in that it examines the attitudes of the foodservice toward visual merchandizing using the Fishbein’s model to provide basic data for differentiated marketing activities, and gives concrete suggestions in the theory and practice of marketing, leading to increased intent to purchase through the positive effect that the attitude toward VMD has on the attitude toward the brands. As a new outstanding element, visual merchandizing can be applied to the store planning to provide foodservice marketers with suggestions for making differentiated stores. The advanced store planning, which allows the integrative organization of the store, will provide a new kind of satisfaction to foodservice consumers.