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

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.