How Merchandising Works?

There have been many attempts to form an explanatory theory of how advertising works, but no one has yet postulated a theory of merchandising. Drawing heavily on the developing science of environmental psychology, which studies the effects of physical environments on human behaviour, a theory of merchandising is established. The theory proposes that in-store behaviour, assessed in terms of approach—avoidance, is determined by emotional responses to merchandising stimuli, tempered by the characteristic response sets of the shopper.