A STUDY ON BRAND COGNITION AND STORE LAYOUT CONFIGURATION ON CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION

In today's very competitive retail sector, understanding consumer behavior is essential for companies to create winning marketing plans and increase customer satisfaction. Brand cognition and store layout configuration are two of the most important internal and external factors that affect customer purchasing decisions. Customers' awareness, recognition, perception, and familiarity with a brand as a result of advertising, prior experiences, and market exposure is known as brand cognition. Similar to this, aisle design, shelf placement, product displays, signage, and general shop structure all affect how customers navigate and find products in retail establishments. Together, these factors influence how consumers make decisions and have an effect on both planned and impulsive purchases. This research investigates how brand cognition and store layout configuration independently and jointly impact consumer navigation, product discovery, and unplanned purchases. Ultimately, the study evaluates how brand recall and physical spatial design shape the consumer shopping experience and drive impulse buying. The study is founded on both primary and secondary data. A standardized questionnaire distributed to retail customers using a Likert scale was used to obtain primary data. Secondary data was gathered from books, journals, research articles, and online academic sources about consumer behavior and retail marketing. The acquired data is evaluated with appropriate analytical approaches to better understand the relationship between brand cognition, store layout configuration, and consumer purchase decisions. The study findings indicate that strong brand cognition boosts customer confidence and purchase intent, while an effective store layout increases product visibility, navigation ease, and dwell time. Furthermore, the interaction between brand recognition and store design significantly drives impulse purchases and overall consumer satisfaction.