The study aims to assess how sustainable visual merchandising (VM) props of luxury fashion brands shape consumers’ perceived brand image and to identify innovative ways for luxury visual merchandising. This research adopts the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, combined with two core dimensions of Aaker’s Brand Personality framework—Sophistication and Excitement—as organism variables, and classifies sustainable VM props as decorative and functional stimuli to examine their effects on the overall luxury brand image. Integrating multi-method research including case analysis of Louis Vuitton, FENDI and Dior, a 230-sample questionnaire survey and thematic analysis, the study finds that both decorative and functional sustainable VM props positively boost consumers’ perceived Sophistication and Excitement, which sequentially generate favorable response towards luxury brand image. The study also identifies overlapping priority demands of luxury brands and customers on sustainable VM design and proposes targeted optimization strategies covering vendor management, immersive green display creation, transparent sustainability communication and long-term sustainable VM system construction. Additionally, this research points out limitations such as limited sample diversity and insufficient carbon footprint data of display facilities and puts forward directions for follow-up research. This paper enriches the literature on sustainable luxury retail visual merchandising by establishing an evidence-based linkage between sustainable VM prop innovation and customer-driven brand image upgrading.
Keywords: Sustainable Visual Merchandising, VM Props, Luxury Brand Image, S-O-R Model
