image coding

Today, people are living in an immense world that contains the co-occurrence of the real world and the digital world. Since the quality of the shopping environment in the real and digital world plays a significant role in users’ preferences, the shopping environment’s design, even in the digital world, is important. The current study identified 51 images of shopping environments (clothing boutiques) published from 2019 to the end of 2021 on 8 architecture-related Instagram pages, with more than one hundred thousand likes. By using a quantitative-analytical method of content analysis and image coding, the present study examines the amount of "materials, lighting, showcase, form and seating types, colours and space configuration" as physical factors affecting Instagram consumers' preferences in shopping environments. The results show that clothing racks, hidden lighting, Stone and plaster materials, sharp-edge forms, puffs, and coherence (spatial configuration) are preferred by Instagram consumers. Examination of the average HSV of the selected images indicates a high Value and low Saturation of colours. The average Hue of the images is 89.66 °. The average RGB also indicates the average concentration of the green colour spectrum (consumers' preferred hue). The identified effective factors in the interior design of digital stores, can increase consumers’ preferences and provide insights for future online digital shopping environment management.