Chapter 9 covers the remaining aspects of the visual atmospherics – colours and signage. Colours are often said to comprise three dimensions: hue, brightness contrast, and saturation. The dimension that has been studied the most is hue. Hue is often described as on a scale from warm colours (red) to cool colours (blue). Research has shown that warmer colours tend to take over the visual scene and force their way into the s consciousness of shoppers. A red colour therefore makes shoppers more aroused or even confused and may interfere with the shoppers' ability to notice other stimuli. A store with too many red objects would overload the senses of the shoppers, and therefore it makes sense to instead work with brightness contrast. The eye's ability to detect brightness contrast primarily resides in the rods in the retina, while the cones primarily are responsible for colour vision. Research has shown that independent of hue, a contrast in the brightness level can create an even stronger visual pop-out effect. Regarding signage, it is found that a sign’s primary task is to attract attention. The attention-grabbing aspect is often more important than the communication. The optimal way to write prices is covered in Chapter 13.

Chapter 8 is the first of two chapters on the visual aspects of store atmospherics. In Chapter 8, the primary focus is on the store’s layout. In Chapter 9, the focus is more on colour and signage. A major reason for having two chapters on visual atmospherics is that vision is the most powerful of the human senses. As much as 83% of the sensory input comes from the eyes. The other four senses only contribute 17% of the sensory input jointly. The store layout is discussed as the perhaps most important aspect of the atmospherics tools since it provides the ‘framework’ for the product displays. With a traditional grid layout, research shows that only a few per cent of the shoppers notice any given product, and less than 0.3% of the total range is seen by the average shopper. With the help of the ‘PLEND’ model, various techniques supported by empirical evidence show how the store’s appearance can be improved.

Chapter 14 covers omnichannel customer journeys. Research has found that the initial digital disruption that occurred as e-commerce started has now settled so that most retailers are working in several different sales channels. It has further been found that even within the same category, customer journeys can be retail specific. The effort to understand the customer journey is called customer mapping. The most generic omnichannel customer journey is webrooming; that is, customer start the purchase journey online by scrolling a social media feed and possibly searching online before fulfilling the purchase in a physical store. The various contacts customers have with the brand are called touchpoints, and it has been shown that different touchpoints serve different purposes. Also, online shopping is a visual process. However, there is a large difference with regards to the visual processes between offline and online shopping. The difference is that in the physical store, the shopper is browsing while walking around the store. Online browsing is done by clicking on links or by typing in a search field. Since the design of the physical store – with its displays, signage, and planograms – is focused on capturing the shopper’s attention, this step can be disregarded in online shopping. Many times, this means that the way products are displayed must be flipped online as compared to offline.

Measuring employee performance is essential for effective compensation management. This chapter discusses key performance indicators (KPIs), appraisal systems, and data-driven talent assessment methods. It explores the relationship between performance measurement and pay structures, as well as best practices for fair and objective evaluations. By the end of the chapter, readers will understand how to integrate performance management into compensation strategies.

Chapter 5 covers research on visual perception and related psychological theories needed to fully understand the visualisation process. Cues and heuristics are discussed since they are effortless and quick ways for the brain to support human decision-making. Cues are stimuli in the environment triggering a habitual thought, i.e., a heuristic. On average, cues and heuristics will help shoppers come to sufficiently good decisions, but it is highly possible that in most situations a bit of more effortful reflection would lead to even better solutions. The chapter also goes through how heuristics can be misleading. For instance, if retailers reduce the number of stock-keeping units (SKUs), the ones remaining will more easily enter the awareness of the shoppers since there is less clutter. The fact that more products enter the shoppers' awareness will be misinterpreted by the shoppers who think that the number of SKUs has increased. Furthermore, research shows that colour is the visual quality that the brain accesses most easily and that brightness contrast is the dimension of colour that the brain uses most effortlessly. Finally, eye-tracking and the physics of the eye are discussed.

Chapter 6 covers research about category management. Said simply, category management means a focus on categories instead of on SKUs, and a division of labour between retailers and manufacturers. In category management various categories are said to belong to one of four roles:profile, routine, convenience, and season. A profiling category stands out as quite unique, a routine category is one that all comparable stores stock, a convenience category is perhaps not part of the core categories but that is carried so that shoppers don't have to go somewhere else to find it; and a seasonal category, which is only stocked when at specific times. Other useful ideas from category management are the concepts of transaction builders, traffic builders, and profit generators. Transaction builders are categories that contribute more to revenues than the average category. A traffic builder is a category of items that end up in many shopping baskets. A profit generator is a category that contributes more to the store’s margin than the average category. A category management project is typically organised so that retailers choose a ‘category captain’ (a manufacturer) to represent all the brands in the category. Together with the retailer, the category captain decides on strategies and planograms. A common outcome of category management projects is that profits increase, but not necessarily revenues .

This chapter presents an applied perspective on compensation analytics by walking through a real-world case. It demonstrates how regression models and industry benchmarks are used to design competitive pay structures. Readers will learn how to evaluate salary trends, conduct internal pay assessments, and apply statistical tools to workforce compensation decisions. The chapter emphasizes the importance of aligning compensation strategies with business goals and market conditions. By the end, readers will be able to implement compensation analytics techniques to optimize their organization’s pay policies.

Chapter 7 is the first of seven chapters on store atmospherics. The term indicates that the atmosphere is under the retailer’s control, and it is an idea that has been researched for over 50 years. Most research studies on store atmospherics rely on the Mehrabian−Russell model (the M-R-model). The M-R model is a stimulus-organism-response model. That is, it looks at the effect of a stimulus (e.g., the store environment) on the shoppers; emotions that in turn influence shopper behaviour. The effect on the shopper behaviour is indirect since behaviour is altered only as a consequence of the shoppers' shifted emotions. A common way to measure emotions is to use the pleasure, arousal, and dominance (PAD) scale. In a next step, a common way to measure the behavioural outcome is to estimate shoppers' approach/avoidance in terms of how much time and money they spend as well as whether they try to approach or avoid others in the store. Pleasure is typically found to correlate with higher spending. Arousal is often found to amplify positive/negative emotions. Some studies have found support for an optimal level of stimulation where too little arousal leads to shoppers spending less because they are not sufficiently aroused, while too much stimulation also has a negative effect on the shopper’s behaviour.

Pay structures and collective bargaining are central to compensation management. This chapter explores how salary bands, job classifications, and union negotiations impact internal pay equity. It examines how organizations balance fairness, employee expectations, and market competitiveness when setting pay ranges. Topics include the impact of unions on wages, how pay compression affects employee morale, and strategies for effective collective bargaining. By understanding these dynamics, managers can better design compensation systems that align with business and workforce needs.