The effects of visual-audio merchandising elements on consumers’ impulsive purchase intentions in apparel e-customization

Abstract

With the development of Internet technology, increasing numbers of people would like to have clothes that are customized to meet their personalization requirements. The purpose of this study is to explore how visual-audio merchandising elements affect consumers’ impulsive purchase intentions in apparel e-customization. There are five dimensions to visual-audio merchandising elements, i.e. the perceived visual-audio of environmental atmosphere, the perceived visual of apparel attributes, the perceived visual-audio of apparel presentation effects, the perceived visual of fashion information, and the perceived visual of service information. Supported by the stimulus-organism-response model, a theoretical model is constructed with positive emotion as the mediating variable. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis, and mediating effect test are adopted to analyze 361 valid datasets. The application and feedback are conducted as well. The findings indicate that (a) visual-audio merchandising elements, perceived visual-audio of environmental atmosphere, perceived visual of apparel attributes, perceived visual of fashion information, and perceived visual of service information positively influence impulsive purchase intentions; (b) perceived visual-audio of apparel presentation effects have no direct significant effect on impulsive purchase intentions; (c) visual-audio merchandising elements, perceived visual-audio of environmental atmosphere, perceived visual of apparel attributes, perceived visual-audio of apparel presentation effects, perceived visual of fashion information, and perceived visual of service information positively influence positive emotion; (d) positive emotion positively influences impulsive purchase intentions; and (e) positive emotion mediates the relationship between visual-audio merchandising elements and impulsive purchase intentions. The quality of technology and service should be considered by brand managers. The findings contribute to fashion brand e-customization and online shopping strategies and provide suggestions on consumers’ impulsive purchase intentions.

How multisensory perception promotes purchase intent in the context of clothing e-customisation

“…The usefulness and informativeness of the website influences the consumers' attitude toward it and their purchase intent (Hausman and Siekpe, 2009). Supported by the stimulus-organism-response model, Li et al (2022) suggest that consumers' impulsive purchase intentions are positively affected by their visual perception on apparel attributes and fashion information in e-customisation. Colour provokes consumers' physiological and emotional responses, as warm colours are associated with cheerful moods (Roschk et al, 2017).…”

“…This current study will investigate whether visual perception influences purchase intent, arousal, and dominance. Since displayed clothing items, fashion information, and perceived visual aesthetic of the website are likely to affect consumers purchase behaviour (Wang et al, 2011;Mo et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022), the hypotheses are presented as follows, H1a. Visual perception has a significant effect on purchase intent in e-customisation.…”

The influence of visual marketing on consumers' purchase intention of fast fashion brands in China–An exploration based on fsQCA method

“…However, most of the research has focused on the single dimension of visual marketing strategy especially display dimension of clothing, for example, existing research indicated that effective display can stimulate consumers' perception of the clothing, thus creating a deeper interaction with the clothing and the brand (Zhu et al, 2018 ; Han and Xu, 2019 ; Choi et al, 2020 ). In addition, several scholars investigated the interaction between apparel display and another visual dimension, and how it influences consumer behavior (M'Hallah and Bouziri, 2016 ; Hwang et al, 2021 ; Shi et al, 2021 ; Li et al, 2022 ). As mentioned above, there is less research on the impact of visual marketing on consumers' purchase intention through comprehensive dimensional combing, such as display, shape, lighting, and color.…”