Identifying and Prioritizing the Key Indicators of the Visual Merchandising of the Online Store with a Fuzzy Delphi Approach (Case Study: Online Stores of Ardabil Businesses)

The purpose of this research is to identify and prioritize the key indicators of the visual merchandising of the online store.

This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive survey research in terms of method. This research is based on quantitative and qualitative approach. The statistical population of the research includes all marketing managers of companies that have internet sales, as well as university professors in Ardabil province, and a sample of 24 people was selected using the purposeful sampling method. In the qualitative part, interviews have been used to identify the indicators of the visual merchandising of the online store. After compiling the interview and collecting its data, the validity and reliability of the interview was tested using the CVR relative content validity index and Cohen’s kappa reliability index. In the quantitative section, the tool for collecting information is a questionnaire. In this way, the indicators identified in the interview were provided to the sample members in the form of a questionnaire to be used in the fuzzy Delphi method. To measure the validity and reliability of the research questionnaire, the method of content validity and reliability was used based on the degree of inconsistency, which is equal to 0.39 have been. Regarding the method of data analysis, in the qualitative part of the research, Atlas.ti software was used, and in the quantitative part, the fuzzy Delphi method was used.

According to the findings of the research, the most important indicators of the visual merchandising of the online store are: image size, number of images, font type, font size, font color, displaying images in a fixed or moving form, image color. The background, the color of the product images and around the products, product categories, the size of the side of the site, the content of the side of the site, how to arrange the images, the lighting of the site page, the activation of the images, menu ads, clickable, non-clickable, automatic and ..., changeable background, flat or 3D images, use of human image or animation, displaying images horizontally or vertically, sound, music and video, graphic design of the site and site content.

The results of the research include the identification and prioritization of the most important key indicators of the visual merchandising of the online store. Finally, 22 determining factors regarding the visual merchandising of the online store were identified.