비주얼 머천다이징, 관계품질, 충성도 간의 관계에 관한 연구

Abstract

Recently, firms have emphasizing visual merchandising(VMD) in their practical marketing businesses which is being more and more important as it includes not only visual factors such as product style, color, package, and brand at a merchandising process but also physical environment, store atmosphere, and display at consumers' purchasing. Consumer-oriented marketing promotions by firms are perceived and evaluated through consumer's five senses, among which most of consumers purchase a merchandise depending on their visual sensation. Customers within the physical environment of service are exposed to a lot of stimulus which potentially affect their satisfaction about a clerk's act, purchasing, and service. Actually, rather than service purchasing, physical environment harmonized with interior, outterior, color, lighting, and layout, a store atmosphere, display, sweet smiling clerk, and even clerks' neat outfit can lead to consumers' revisit, consequently influencing consumer satisfaction and trust. Therefore, the power attracting consumers to a store is not only from product and service themselves but also from visual merchandising(VMD) elements with visual trait, which are evaluated through the consumer's perception, eventually leading to the brand loyalty and obtaining a relationship outcome. But few studies related with VMD and its relationship outcome have been conducted although VMD pushed ahead by stores can be used as tangible evidences of service evaluation. Therefore, this study divides VMD variables as tangible evidences in the service quality into six - harmony, attractiveness, fitness, popularity, functionality, and reliability- focusing on functional path satisfaction to verify the trust and commitment of relationship quality. Especially for more desirable results of relationship outcome, the commitment of relationship quality is divided into two dimensions -calculative commitment and affective commitment as it can be divided into economic benefit as aspect of cost and store atmosphere as physical environment along with the loyalty divided into attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. This study also identifies moderating effects in this study model to see if there is any difference by each trait of cognitive style. This thesis emphasized the importance of VMD in connection with perception of consumer behavior by reviewing literature to achieve its purpose effectively and proved VMD to be used as tangibles evidence of service evaluation in relationship outcome, and set up the study model system including from relationship quality to the loyalty. Also, it established a basis for difference of effects depending on cognitive trait for moderating variables and performed a substantial analysis by conducting the survey. To verify the study model and hypothesis drawn from theoretical analysis, this study analyzed 68 items substantially based on review of literature. The questionnaires were distributed to those who were in their 20s and 30s living in Seoul, Busan, and Jeju and of total 800 cases, 747 cases were collected but only 711 cases were used for the final analysis of the survey excluding 76 cases which were regarded as insincere or omitted. Collected data were verified by using SPSS 15.0(for window) and AMOS 7.0. The results of analysis are summarized as follows. First, from the verified result of effect relationship between VMD and satisfaction of relationship quality and trust of relationship quality, it was shown that harmony followed by reliability and functionality positively affected the satisfaction of relationship quality and trust of relationship quality. In effect relationship among satisfaction, trust and commitment of relationship quality, satisfaction of relationship quality had an effect on calculative commitment and affective commitment but trust of relationship quality affected just only calculative commitment. In relationship between relationship quality and loyalty, satisfaction of relationship quality positively influenced attitudinal loyalty and trust of relationship quality affected behavioral loyalty. Calculative commitment and affective commitment significantly affected both attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty, reflecting the higher commitment of relationship quality shows, the higher brand loyalty marks. Second, the result of evaluation of VMD, relationship quality, and brand loyalty depending on cognitive trait indicated that field-dependent cognitive style was rated significantly higher than field-independent cognitive style. Third, the result of verifying moderating effects of cognitive style showed that moderating effects depending upon cognitive style trait appeared in relation with fitness and functionality of VMD and satisfaction of relationship quality, and with harmony, fitness, popularity and reliability of VMD and trust of relationship quality. Especially, in relation with harmony, function, popularity of VMD, the influence of field-dependent cognitive style was shown greatly while field-independent cognitive style had a strong influence in relation with fitness and trust of VMD, In terms of the relationship quality, moderating effects by cognitive style trait were present in relation with satisfaction of relationship quality and emotional commitment and with trust of relationship quality and calculative commitment. Moreover, in conjunction with relationship quality and brand loyalty, moderating effects were shown in affective commitment of relationship quality with attitudinal loyalty and calculative commitment with attitudinal loyalty. When it comes to calculative commitment, it appeared that field-independent cognitive style affected greatly while the influence of field-dependent cognitive style was shown higher with affective commitment. Finally, this study implies that VMD affects more greatly satisfaction of relationship quality than trust of relationship quality, and satisfaction of relationship quality lead to brand loyalty, reflecting it obtain relationship outcome, from which it can be proved that the recent VMD strategy pushed ahead by coffee special stores for achieving the customer's relationship outcome is a good hit. and it is identified that cognitive style makes a difference in perception and evaluation of VMD and decision-making can also be influenced by evaluation. The results of this study suggest that field-dependence may obtain brand loyalty in the aspect of emotion, but field-independence may get more brand loyalty in the aspect of economic benefit. Future studies related with VMD should focus on the store where products are exchanged, not services, and in connection with the result that each cognitive style makes a difference in perception, evaluation, and decision-making, more studies need to be conducted on behavioral differences such as source of information, information-searching process, consuming behavior, and product-searching behavior by cognitive style trait.