• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.19-45
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• 2008

This study is to empirically examine the primary dimensions of visual merchandising (VMD) of internet shopping mall, namely store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues, to be a attractive virtual store to the shoppers. The authors reviewed the literature related to the major components of VMD from the perspective of the AIDA model, which has been mainly applied to the offline store settings. The major purposes of the study are as follows; first, tries to derive the variables related with the components of visual merchandising through reviewing the existing literatures, establish the hypotheses, and test it empirically. Second, examines the relationships between the components of VMD and the attitude toward the VMD, however, putting more emphasis on finding out the component structure of the VMD. VMD needs to be examined with the perspective that an online shopping mall is a virtual self-service or clerkless store, which could reduce the number of employees, help the shoppers search, evaluate and purchase for themselves, and to be explored in terms of the in-store persuasion processes of customers. This study reviewed the literatures related to store design, merchandise, and merchandising cues which might be relevant to the store, product, and promotion respectively. VMD is a total communication tool, and AIDA model could explain the in-store consumer behavior of online shopping. Store design has to do with triggering a consumer attention to the online mall, merchandise with a product related interest, and merchandising cues with promotions such as recommendation and links that induce the desire to pruchase. These three steps might be seen as the processes for purchase actions. The theoretical rationale for the relationship between VMD and AIDA could be found in Tyagi(2005) that the three steps of consumer-oriented merchandising are a store, a product assortment, and placement, in Omar(1999) that three types of interior display are a architectural design display, commodity display, and point-of-sales(POS) display, and in Davies and Ward(2005) that the retail store interior image is related to an atmosphere, merchandise, and in-store promotion. Lee et al(2000) suggested as the web merchandising components a merchandising cues, a shopping metaphor which is an assistant tool for search, a store design, a layout(web design), and a product assortment. The store design which includes differentiation, simplicity and navigation is supposed to be related to the attention to the virtual store. Second, the merchandise dimensions comprising product assortments, visual information and product reputation have to do with the interest in the product offerings. Finally, the merchandising cues that refer to merchandiser(MD)'s recommendation of products and providing the hyperlinks to relevant goods for the shopper is concerned with attempt to induce the desire to purchase. The questionnaire survey was carried out to collect the data about the consumers who would shop at internet shopping malls frequently. To select the subject malls, the mall ranking data announced by a mall rating agency was used to differentiate the most popular and least popular five mall each. The subjects was instructed to answer the questions after navigating the designated mall for five minutes. The 300 questionnaire was distributed to the consumers, 166 samples were used in the final analysis. The empirical testing focused on identifying and confirming the dimensionality of VMD and its subdimensions using a structural equation modeling method. The confirmatory factor analysis for the endogeneous and exogeneous variables was carried out in four parts. The second-order factor analysis was done for a store design, a merchandise, and a merchandising cues, and first-order confirmatory factor analysis for the attitude toward the VMD. The model test results shows that the chi-square value of structural equation is 144.39(d.f 49), significant at 0.01 level which means the proposed model was rejected. But, judging from the ratio of chi-square value vs. degree of freedom, the ratio was 2.94 which smaller than an acceptable level of 3.0, RMR is 0.087 which is higher than a generally acceptable level of 0.08. GFI and AGFI is turned out to be 0.90 and 0.84 respectively. Both NFI and NNFI is 0.94, and CFI 0.95. The major test results are as follows; first, the second-order factor analysis and structural equational modeling reveals that the differentiation, simplicity and ease of identifying current status of the transaction are confirmed to be subdimensions of store design and to be a significant predictors of the dependent variable. This result implies that when designing an online shopping mall, it is necessary to differentiate visually from other malls to improve the effectiveness of the communications of store design. That is, the differentiated store design raise the contrast stimulus to sensory organs to promote the memory of the store and to have a favorable attitude toward the VMD of a store. The results that navigation which means the easiness of identifying current status of shopping affects the attitude to VMD could be interpreted that the navigating processes via the hyperlinks which is characteristics of an internet shopping is a complex and cognitive process and shoppers are likely to lack the sense of overall structure of the store. Consequently, shoppers are likely to be alost amid shopping not knowing where to go. The orientation tool enhance the accessibility of information to raise the perceptive power about the store environment.(Titus & Everett 1995) Second, the primary dimension of merchandise and its subdimensions was confirmed to be unidimensional respectively, have a construct validity, and nomological validity which the VMD dimensions supposed to have a positive correlation with the dependent variable. The subdimensions of product assortment, brand fame and information provision proved to have a positive effect on the attitude toward the VMD. It could be interpreted that the more plentiful the product and brand assortment of the mall is, the more likely the shoppers to favor it. Brand fame and information provision as well affect the VMD attitude, which means that the more famous the brand, the more likely the shoppers would trust and feel familiar with the mall, and the plentifully and visually presented information could have the shopper have a favorable attitude toward the store VMD. Third, it turned out to be that merchandising cue of product recommendation and hyperlinks affect the VMD attitude. This could be interpreted that recommended products could reduce the uncertainty related with the purchase decision, and the hyperlinks to relevant products would help the shopper save the cognitive effort exerted into the information search and gathering, which could lead to a favorable attitude to the VMD. This study tried to sheds some new light on the VMD of online store by reviewing the variables mentioned to be relevant with offline VMD in the existing literatures, and tried to link the VMD components from the perspective of AIDA model. The effect size of the VMD dimensions on the attitude was in the order of the merchandise, the store design and the merchandising cues.It is said that an internet has an unlimited place for display, however, the virtual store is not unlimited since the consumer has a limited amount of cognitive ability to process the external information and internal memory. Particularly, the shoppers are likely to face some difficulties in decision making on account of too many alternative and information overloads. Therefore, the internet shopping mall manager should take into consideration the cost of information search on the part of the consumer, to establish the optimal product placements and search routes. An efficient store composition would be possible by reducing the psychological burdens and cognitive efforts exerted to information search and alternatives evaluation. The store image is in most part determined by the product category and its brand it deals in. The results of this study support this proposition that the merchandise is most important to the VMD attitude than other components, the manager is required to take a strategic approach to VMD. The internet users are getting more accustomed and more knowledgeable about the internet media and more likely to accept the internet as a shopping channel as the period of time during which they use the internet to shop become longer. The web merchandiser should be aware that the product introduction using a moving pictures and a bulletin board become more important in order to present the interactive product information visually and communicate with customers more actively, therefore leading to making the quantity and quality of product information more rich.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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• v.3
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• pp.1-40
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• 1965

To measure variations in some of the important agronomic characteristics of rice varieties under shifting of seedling dates, this study has been carried out at the Paddy Crop Division of Crop Experiment Station(then Agricultural Experiment Station) in Suwon for the period of three years 1958 to 1960. The varieties used in this study were Kwansan, Suwon ＃82, Mojo, Paltal and Chokwang, which have the different agronomic characteristics such as earliness and plant type. Seeds of each variety were sown at 14 different dates in 10-day interval starting on March 2. The seedlings were grown on seed bed for 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80 days, respectively. The results of this study are as follows: A. Heading dates. 1. As the seeding date was delayed, the heading dates was almost proportionally delayed. The degree of delay was higher in early varieties and lower in late varieties and the longer the seedling stage, the more delayed the heading date. 2. Number of days to heading was proportionally lessened as seeding was delayed in all the varieties but the magnitude varied depending upon variety. In other words, the required period for heading in case of late planting was much shortened in late variety compared with early one. Within a variety, the number of days to heading was less shortened as the seedling stage was prolonged. Early variety reached earlier than late variety to the marginal date for the maximum shortening of days to heading and the longer the seeding stage, the limitted date came earlier. There was a certain limit in seeding date for shortening of days to heading as seeding was delayed, and days to heading were rather prolonged due to cold weather when seeded later than that date. 3. In linear regression equation, Y=a+bx obtained from the seeding dates and the number of days to heading, the coefficient b(shortening rate of days to heading) was closely correlated with the average number of days to heading. That is, the period from seeding to heading was more shortened in late variety than early one as seeding was delayed. 4. To the extent that the seedling stage is not so long and there is a linear relationship between delay of seeding and shortening of days to heading, it might be possible to predict heading date of a rice variety to be sown any date by using the linear regression obtained from variation of heading dates under the various seeding dates of the same variety. 5. It was found out that there was a close correlation between the numbers of days to heading in ordinary culture and the other ones. When a rice variety was planted during the period from the late part of March to the middle of June and the seedling ages were within 30 to 50 days, it could be possible to estimate heading date of the variety under late or early culture with the related data of ordinary culture. B. Maturing date. 6. Within (he marginal date for maturation of rice variety, maturing date was proportionally delayed as heading was delayed. Of course, the degree of delay depended upon varieties and seedling ages. The average air temperature (Y) during the ripening period of rice variety was getting lower as the heading date. (X) was delayed. Though there was a difference among varieties, in general, a linear regression equation(y=25.53-0.182X) could be obtained as far as heading date were within August 1 to September 13. 7. Depending upon earliness of a rice variety, the average air temperature during the ripening period were greatly different. Early variety underwent under 28$^{\circ}C$ in maximum while late variety matured under as low as 22$^{\circ}C$. 8. There was a highly significant correlation between the average air temperature (X) during the ripening period, and number of day (Y) for the maturation. And the relationship could be expressed as y=82.30-1.55X. When the average air temperature during the period was within the range of 18$^{\circ}C$ to 28$^{\circ}C$, the ripening period was shortened by 1.55 days with increase of 1$^{\circ}C$. Considering varieties, Kwansan was the highest in shortening the maturing period by 2.24 days and Suwon ＃82 was the lowest showing 0.78 days. It is certain that ripening of rice variety is accelerated at Suwon as the average air temperature increases within the range of 18$^{\circ}C$ to 28$^{\circ}C$. 9. Between number of days to heading (X) related to seeding dates and the accumulated average air temperature (Y) during the ripening period, a positive correlation was obtained. However, there was a little difference in the accumulated average air temperature during the ripening period even seeding dates were shifted to a certain extent. C. Culm- and ear-lengths. 10. In general all the varieties didn't show much variation in their culm-lengths in case of relatively early seeding but they trended to decrease the lengths as seeding was delayed. The magnitude of decreasing varied from young seedlings to old ones. Young seedlings which were seeded during May 21 to June 10 didn't decrease their culm-lengths, while seedlings old as 80 days decreased the length though under ordinary culture. 11. Variation in ear-length of rice varieties show the same trend as the culm-length subjected to the different seeding dates. When rice seedlings aged from 30 to 40 days, the ear-length remained constant but rice plants older than 40 days obviously decreased their ear-lengths. D. Number of panicles per hill. 12. The number of panicles per hill decreased up to a certain dates as seeding was delayed and then again increased the panicles due to the development of numerous tillers at the upper internodes. The seeding date to reach to the least number of panicles of rice variety depended upon the seedling ages. Thirty- to 40-day seedlings which were seeded during May 31 to June 10 developed the lowest number of panicles and 70- to 80-day seedlings sown for the period from April 11 to April 21 reached already to the minimum number of panicles. E. Number of rachillae. 13. To a certain seeding date, the number of rachillae didn't show any variation due to delay of seeding but it decreased remarkably when seeded later than the marginal date. 14. Variation in number of rachillae depended upon seedling ages. For example, 30- to 40-day old seedlings which, were originally seeded after May 31 started to decrease the rachillae. On the other hand, 80-day old seedlings which, were seeded on May 1 showed a tendency to decrease rachillae and the rice plant sown on May 31 could develop narrowly 3 or 4 panicles. F. Defective grain and 1.000-grain weights. 15. Under delay of the seeding dates, weight of the defective grains gradually increased till a certain date and then suddenly increased. These relationships could be expressed with two different linear regressions. 16. If it was assumed that the marginal date for ripening was the cross point of these two lines, the date seemed. closely related with seedling ages. The date was June 10- in 30- to 40-day old seedlings but that of 70- to 80-day old seedlings was May 1. Accordingly, the marginal date for ripening was getting earlier as the seedling stage was prolonged. 17. The 1.000-grain weight in ordinary culture was the heaviest and it decreased in both early and late cultures. G. Straw and rough rice weights. 18. Regardless of earliness of variety, rice plants under early culture which were seeded before March 22 or April 1 did not show much variation in straw weight due to seedling ages but in ordinary culture it gradually decreased and the degree was became greater in late culture. 19. Relationship between seeding dates (X) and grain weight related to varieties and seedling ages, could be expressed as a parabola analogous to a line (Y=77.28-7.44X$_1$-1.00lX$_2$). That is, grain yield didn't vary in early culture but it started to decrease when seeded later than a certain date, as seeding was delayed. The variation was much greater in cases of late planting and prolongation of seedling age. 20. Generally speaking, the relationship between grain yield (Y) and number of days to heading (X) was described with linear regression. However, the early varieties were the highest yielders within the range of 60 to 110, days to heading but the late variety greatly decreased its yield since it grows normally only under late culture. The grain yield, on the whole, didn't increase as number of days to heading exceeded more than 140 days.