Visual merchandising strategies for fashion retailers

This article discusses the emerging role of visual merchandising for fashion retailers as a competitive strategy. Three research papers are introduced for the Journal of Global Fashion Marketing's 2014 special issue on visual merchandising. The fashion retail market has been changing faster than any other market and this change is not a gradual one; it is, rather, revolutionary. One of the most important factors leading this change is the emergence of online shopping, including all different kinds of non-brick-and-mortar commerce through mobile devices, television and kiosks. Fashion retailers who maintain their physical stores must cope with the raised expectations and evolved shopping habits of customers, who are concurrently able to enjoy cyber shopping anywhere in the world.