The Importance of Visual Merchandising in Communicating the Corporate Identity of Retail Stores

Abstract

In today’s competitive retail environment, retailers struggle in order to increase their sales and to carry their brands to the wider masses. The best way to achieve this purpose is to consider the significance of visual merchandising. Ries (2012) asserts that aesthetics within the retail environment not only affect shopper comfort level but can influence employee morale and productivity. It helps the retailers constructing a strong and positive image for their store. V.M is the process through which a retail store’s display of products is made appealing, attractive, and enticing to the customer, not only as a stimulus to enter the store, but to create an impression in the customer’s mind. Van den Bosch, De Jong and Elving (2005) argue that visual messages in corporate communication benefit the organization in the visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency, and consistency of corporate identity. Thus, window displays with various visual messages of the corporation are assumed to have the responsibility of communicating corporate identity. Westcott Alessandri, (2001) argue that visual presentations can consistently bridge the corporate mission and corporate identity. Topalian, (1984) argue that VM supports effective corporate communication as it comes with the deep understanding within the company in terms of what the corporation is and what the corporation stands for. The purposes of the paper are to investigate the importance of visual merchandising as a mean of communication, and to analyse how visual merchandising communicates the corporate identity for the store. The significance of the paper to contribute towards understanding the persuasive effect of visual merchandising in making the first impression, representing and promoting the corporate identity. The major results of the paper are: V.M is a retail strategy that maximizes the aesthetics of a product with the intent to increase sales, the V.M remains an important channel of corporate marketing communication.

Keywords

• visual merchandising “v.m”; retail store; corporate identity; windows display; display design