This paper determined the influence of retail store merchandise assortment and display on consumer impulse buying behavior in north-west Nigeria. Two specific purposes were set with two research questions to guide the study. Two null hypotheses were formulated for the study and were tested at .05 level of significance. The study was conducted in 10 Colleges of Education in North-west Nigeria on a target population of Business Education Lecturers. A total of 219 Lecturers who teach Business Education courses in the colleges and who also patronize retail stores as consumers were studied. A structured questionnaire called “Influence of Retail Store Merchandise Assortment and Display on Consumer Impulse Buying Behaviour (IRSMADCIBB)” was used to obtain data for the study. The instrument was structured on a five-point Likert scale. The instrument was face-validated by three experts in Business Education in University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria all in Nigeria. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test was used to determine the internal consistency of the instrument and a reliability index of .75 was obtained. A total of 204 copies of the instrument were retrieved for analysis. Data were analyzed using Mean and Standard Deviation to answer the research questions while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the null hypotheses at .05 level of significance. It was found out that the respondents agreed that retail store merchandise assortment and display are capable of influencing consumers’ impulse buying behavior. It was recommended, among others, that retail store merchants should take advantage of training and retraining programmes such as workshops, seminars and conferences to update their retailing skills for better product presentations to their customers.
Keywords: Consumer Behaviour, impulse buying, merchandise assortment, merchandise display
