Abstract

Window displays play an important role as environmental cues that create competitive advantages and influence customer’s perception towards the image of a large scale department store. This research based on the environmental psychology theories aimed to determine the differentiation of window display design settings in large scale department stores in Bangkok in terms of attracting prospective customers and conveying their merchandising messages. This research also explored to what extent the perception of the target customers would be affected by different positioning strategies and various display design settings of the department stores. A set of pictorial stimulus with different design elements and composition settings was used to ascertain the perceptual responses and decision to purchase of a group of 619 subjects. The findings showed that design elements and composition settings used in window display affected customers’ perceptions towards merchandising messages considerably.