The impact of social media marketing on customer purchase intent

“An Investigation of the impact of Social media marketing on customer

purchase intent in retail industry of UK: A case study of Asda”

Signed Statement

“Here it is certified that the dissertation work has been conducted only be me and is not

submitted for the same purpose of any other degree”

______Name________

___, ___, 2015

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Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the contribution of my supervisor who gave me perfect

suggestion that was required to complete the dissertation work.

I specially thank to those correspondents including the customers and sales persons of

Sainsbury who gave their valuable time and attended the survey questionnaire.

At the very last, I would like to thank all the related parties with the dissertation.

_____Name____

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Abstract:

Social media marketing has become a recent phenomenon in the current business world

because opens a path of free, direct and constant communication between different types

customers which ultimately brings the company closer and familiar with the target customers.

The objectives of the research is to investigate different aspects and importance of social

media marketing enables the company more competitive by generating opinions, reviews and

comments of the different customers which reflects the current market conditions and

scenarios that will help to design more customer oriented strategy for getting more customer

insight and customer preferences. Researcher has successfully attained all the objectives in

the research.

The brief discussion about the social media marketing is given in the research by showing

different aspects of it.Besides the customer purchase intent is fully described here. Social

media is emerging as an important tool for influencing customers and ultimately their

purchase intent which refers that both social media and customers purchase intent are co-

related.

Research methodology was properly discussed and the reader can easily get acquainted with

several terms like research design, research strategy, research method and so forth. This

chapter provides the opportunity to the readers to clearly and easily understand the reasons

and justifications of using a particular research design, research strategy, research method,

data collection and sampling method and data analysis and techniques. Besides, the reader

can have an overview over the limitation of the research and ethical aspect that must be

considered in the research.

Researcher found through its survey questions that respondents are highly positive towards

the survey questions regarding the impact of social media on customer purchase intent.

Almost 80% of the respondents were agreed about the survey questions about the customer

purchase intent. Regression analysis showed all the independent variables are effective and

have some impacts on the customer purchase intent. Besides, correlation analysis shows

positive impacts on customer purchase intent. The average mean and mode value also support

the statement.

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At the end, few recommendation were made to make the situation improve its current social

media marketing strategy for be more effective in gaining customer purchase by influencing

their intent. Social media marketing mainly aims to increase the trafficking in the social

media sites and its websites to present or demonstrate different offers, products, schemes,

reviews, information and other things for influencing customer perception and getting more

response.

Table of Content

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s

Abstract:................................................................................................................................................3

1 Chapter One: Introduction:...........................................................................................................9

1.1 Background of the research:..................................................................................................9

1.2 Rationale of the research:.....................................................................................................10

1.3 Problem statement..............................................................................................................11

1.4 Aim of the research:............................................................................................................11

1.5 Objectives of the research...................................................................................................11

1.6 Questions of the research....................................................................................................12

1.7 Research hypotheses...........................................................................................................12

1.8 Scope of the research:.........................................................................................................12

1.9 Structure of the research.....................................................................................................13

2 Chapter Two: Literature Review..................................................................................................15

2.1 Social media marketing........................................................................................................15

2.2 Importance of Social media marketing................................................................................16

2.3 Approaches of Social media marketing................................................................................18

2.3.1 Twitter..........................................................................................................................18

2.3.2 Facebook......................................................................................................................19

2.3.3 LinkedIn.......................................................................................................................19

2.3.4 Instagram.....................................................................................................................19

2.3.5 You Tube......................................................................................................................20

2.4 Customer purchase intent:..................................................................................................20

2.5 Relationship between social media marketing and customer purchase intent:..................23

2.6 Conceptual framework:.......................................................................................................25

3 Chapter Three: Research methodology.......................................................................................27

3.1 Research design...................................................................................................................27

3.2 Research Philosophy............................................................................................................27

Epistemology...............................................................................................................................27

Interpretivism..............................................................................................................................28

Phenomenology...........................................................................................................................28

Positivism.....................................................................................................................................28

3.3 Research Approach..............................................................................................................28

3.4 Research Strategy................................................................................................................30

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3.5 Research Method.................................................................................................................31

3.6 Data Collection Method.......................................................................................................32

3.7 Data Sampling Method........................................................................................................32

3.8 Data Analysis tools and techniques.....................................................................................34

3.9 Limitation of the study.........................................................................................................34

3.10 Ethical consideration...........................................................................................................35

4 Chapter Four: Result & Discussion...............................................................................................36

4.1 Result...................................................................................................................................36

4.1.1 Demographic Profile of the Respondents....................................................................36

4.1.2 Cronbach's alpha..........................................................................................................37

4.1.3 Facebook......................................................................................................................38

4.1.4 Google Plus..................................................................................................................39

4.1.5 Twitter..........................................................................................................................40

4.1.6 LinkedIn.......................................................................................................................41

4.1.7 YouTube.......................................................................................................................43

4.1.8 Instagram.....................................................................................................................44

4.1.9 Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)...................................................................................45

4.1.10 Correlation Analysis.....................................................................................................46

4.1.11 Regression Analysis......................................................................................................47

4.1.12 Which one is the most attractive and influencing social media?.................................48

4.1.13 Through which social media you are getting influenced mostly for purchasing the products of ASDA?.......................................................................................................................48

4.1.14 Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other social media?.............49

4.1.15 Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook?.....50

4.2 Discussion............................................................................................................................51

5 Chapter Five: Conclusion and recommendation..........................................................................56

5.1 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................56

5.2 Recommendations:..............................................................................................................58

References...........................................................................................................................................60

6 Appendices..................................................................................................................................64

Appendix A..........................................................................................................................................64

PARTICIPANT SOCIO DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE.................................................................................64

Appendix B..........................................................................................................................................69

CONSENT FORM..............................................................................................................................69

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List of FiguresFigure 1: Descriptive result of Facebook.............................................................................................38Figure 2: Descriptive result of Google Plus.........................................................................................39Figure 3: Descriptive result of Twitter.................................................................................................40Figure 4: Descriptive result of LinkedIn..............................................................................................41Figure 5: Descriptive result of YouTube.............................................................................................42Figure 6: Descriptive result of Instagram............................................................................................44Figure 7: Descriptive result of Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)..........................................................45Figure 8: Descriptive result of Most Attractive social Media..............................................................47Figure 9: Descriptive result of Which Social Media Customers are influenced to purchase the products.............................................................................................................................................................48Figure 10: Descriptive result of Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other social media...................................................................................................................................................49Figure 11: Descriptive result of Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook.............................................................................................................................................50

List of TablesTable 1: Descriptive result of Demographic Profile of the Respondents.............................................36Table 2: Descriptive result of Cronbach's alpha..................................................................................37Table 3:Descriptive result of Facebook...............................................................................................37Table 4: Descriptive result of Google Plus..........................................................................................39Table 5: Descriptive result of Twitter..................................................................................................40Table 6: Descriptive result of LinkedIn...............................................................................................41Table 7: Descriptive result of Friend-Feed..........................................................................................42Table 8: Descriptive result of Instagram..............................................................................................43Table 9: Descriptive result of Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)...........................................................44Table 10: Correlation Matrix...............................................................................................................45Table 11: Model Summary of Customer purchase intent.....................................................................46Table 12: Coefficient of Regression....................................................................................................46

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1 Chapter One: Introduction:

1.1 Background of the research:

Asda is the name of largest retail chain stores in UK which was formed by a group of farmers

from Yorkshire (north of Britain) in 1965 and it was expanded in south in seventies and

eighties by the process of bought rival chain of superstores Gateways in 1989 (asda.com,

2015. Asda has board range of retail business sector such as food, clothing, general

merchandise, toys and financial services. Asda’s main aim is to attract customer by offering

low price at convenient and then they express a slogan that is “saving money, everyday’’ and

its promotion also based on solely on price. In 1999, ASDA got the membership of the Wal-

Mart family after that they experienced the number of customers are increased at signified

rate.

Social media marketing is the process of using social media channel for promoting and

marketing a company’s product or service that will satisfy customers need at desire level of

expectation. There are some social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Skype,

Instragram, LinkedIn, etc by which a company can reach their potential customers or to

current customers that also helps to gain customers attention about product and service or to

attain customer purchase intent. According to Samson et al. (2014) Customers purchase intent

are always influenced by several factors that is most important for the company increase the

customers purchase intent by which company can achieve their objectives.faulds and

mangold (2014) said that Social media is very essential in influencing customer purchase

decision because customers are always influenced by different massage or content that gives

a clear idea about product or service which will purchase or not. It is also important to get

desire response from the customers that helps to the marketer to decide on what media

channels work effectively in the field of social media marketing. Besides, social media will

help the Asda to tackle competition in very precise way by different visual, verbal and written

communication to meet the query and interest of the customers (Yu et al., 2013). Social

media marketing is a “Next big think” that’s yet temporary but proper understanding and

implementing of social media marketing tools company can gain and attain customer intent

that Asda have. In the social media every company who are in social media marketing they

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should recognize their brand or identities to the audiences or customers that helps to make

customer loyalty.

According to Werbin (2011), When an advertiser provides an ads by using social media such

as facebook, twitter, instagrametc audience can ignore, in this case advertiser needs to know

how attract and influence the audience to read or see the ad and try to provide most attractive

and influential content that helps to attract to users of the social media. Unlike traditional

media that is often cost prohibitive to many company, but social media is a field in which

there is no need of astronomical budgeting for these any company can use social media to

promote their product or service to customer who know or don’t know about them (faulds

and mangold, 2014). Zerralla said in her book, by using social media company can directly

connect with customers in whom customers are also interested to engage with company to

review the post about product and service, rate customer service and ask question from which

customers are well informed.

1.2 Rationale of the research:

Social media marketing is now widely used tools by Asda because Asda is trying to keep

balance and appropriateness in its communication process where customer will directly

connected with the organisation, can involve in interactive communication, can be attracted

by showing and giving different current news and offers, can get appropriate and meaningful

messages through different media, which can help Asda to gain customers’ attention and

finally gain their purchase decision in favour of it(Samson et al., 2014). Asda always wants to

get maximum number of purchase from the customers by providing value proposition

through its message by using different media where social media marketing is most effective

tool in this area. Social media marketing is effective in increasing message impacts, customer

expertise, customer knowledge, media and audience fragmentation which all are helping in

gaining more customers’ purchase through influencing their intent (Werbin, 2011). Asda

needs to get customer purchase for making it more profitable and sustainable where social

media marketing is big player. So, proper investigation is needed to get the real situation on

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the basis of Asda. In Facebook and twitter, Asda can post or upload content in which

customers or followers express their opinion by like, comment, and sometimes dislike.

This research will illustrate the co-relation between advertising affects increase in customer

purchase intent. This research will reflect the effectiveness of social media in influencing

customer purchase intent. Besides, different aspects or elements of social media will be

analysed by taking feedback of the customers which will enable Asda to get real customer

insight. Customer purchase decision making process will be analysed with different

perspective which will help to design effective social media marketing process.

1.3 Problem statement

This research is prepared to show investigation of the impact of social media marketing on

customer purchase intent. Here, researcher has faced the main problem which channels or

tools they should use in social media marketing that can reach to the ultimate customers.

Besides, customers are well interested to interact directly with companies by seeing and

reviewing the company’s web site or other channel. On the other hand, researcher also has

faced a problem that they can’t reach to the mass people or audience to collect the accurate

information about the impact of social media on their purchase intent. So, researcher should

follow the most popular social media by which an exact information can collect from the

users so that its gives an accurate research result.

1.4 Aim of the research:The aim of the research is to analyseAsda’ssocial media marketing on customer purchase

intent.

1.5 Objectives of the researchThis research has the following objectives:

To investigate different aspects and importance of Social media marketing taken by

Asda to attract customers.

To analyse customer purchase intent and different factors related with this of Asda.

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To inquire the relationship between Social media marketing and customer purchase

intent of Asda.

To recommend Tesco to reshape Social media marketing in order to influence

customer purchase intent more effectively.

1.6 Questions of the research

The very questions of the research hence:

What are the Social media marketing used as strategy by Asda to attract customers?

What are the different social media sites used by Asda as part of social media

marketing?

What is the importance of Social media marketing for a retailing company a study on

the basis of Asda?

What is the current situation of customer purchase intent about the Asda?

Is customers possessed positive intent about Asda’s product?

What are different factors and consideration affecting customer purchase intent of

Asda?

What is the relationship between relationship between Social media marketing and

customer purchase intent of Asda?

1.7 Research hypotheses

H0: There is a strong relationship between Social media marketing and customer purchase

intent of Asda.

H1: There is no any strong relationship between Social media marketing and customer

purchase intent of Asda.

1.8 Scope of the research:

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This research is prepared on the basis of the social media marketing and customer purchase

intent; here researcher will discuss these issues thoroughly for getting full insight of them.

This research will reveal different aspects of the social media marketing and its importance

on the perspective of Tesco. This research will also show how customers make their purchase

decision and how organisation can influence the purchase intent to get the purchase in favour

of it. The effectiveness of social media marketing of Asda on customer purchase intent will

be discussed with proper analysis and proper investigation. Then required recommendation

will be made to improve the current situation to make it more effective.

1.9 Structure of the research

Chapter name Description

Introduction Here, research will give short introductory

note about the research topic and company

information and involvement regarding her

research issues. The objectives, aims,

questions, hypotheses and problem statement

is given here for proper understanding of the

research

Literature review Here, researcher will discuss about different

findings, statement and conclusion of

different writers, researchers and

academicians regarding the research topic. A

conceptual framework is also given here.

Methodology The methods and technics that are used in the

research by researcher are described here

with proper and appropriate justification.

Result and discussion In this part, the result or data analysis will be

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given in statistical data and then research will

explain all of them. Besides, research will

also discuss about the research findings and

previous research findings to compare the

result.

Conclusion and recommendation Conclusion will be made at last part where

research will show how much appropriate

and successful he is in attaining research

objectives. Besides, required

recommendation will be made for better and

sustainable improvement.

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2 Chapter Two: Literature Review

Here, the researcher will discuss about different findings, statement and conclusion of

different writers, researchers and academicians regarding the research topic. A conceptual

framework is also given here

2.1 Social media marketing

Social media marketing has become a buzzword in the current business world because opens

a path of free, direct and constant communication between different types customers which

ultimately brings the company closer and familiar with the target customers (Saboo et al.,

2015). According to Brennan and Croft (2012), social media marketing enables the company

more competitive by generating opinions, reviews and comments of the different customers

which reflects the current market conditions and scenarios that will help to design more

customer oriented strategy for getting more customer insight and customer preferences. Fotis

et al. (2011) has explained this is an era of information technology and free flow of

information needs to be insured by the organisation for making customers’ well informed and

knowledgeable for making purchase decision after considering several factors. Charron et al.

(2006) have argued that user generated contents are getting more preferences by the business

organisations as today’s world is customer oriented and organisation always prefer to

manufaturer and sell goods which are preferred by the customers not by them, here social

media marketing is doing lo contribution by collecting customers opinions and providing

customers an opportunity to express their intended products from the company. Fredrich

(2009) has found that firms are now make affiliation with the social networking sites to catch

the attention of the customers more at the social networking sites and create attention and

preferences among the customers with lower cost than the traditional communication sites.

On the other hand, Saboo et al. (2015) believed that social media marketing is good for the

organisation but to some extent it makes customers over-powered which ultimately leads the

way to creating weakness and potential negative image in the market, besides some people

can intentionally create negative image by commenting unnecessary and false statements in

the social media sites. Robinson (2010) further added that any confidential information can

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be leaked unintentionally through the social media sites and for getting effective result

organisation must engaged constantly and without any intervene to provide feedback to the

customers which sometimes generate cost for the organisation. The social media marketing of

Asda seems very potential and it is doing great in the organisational success perspective, but

social media has got some potential pitfalls and to analyse the Asda’s social media impact a

deep analysis is needed. The proper combination and use of social networking sites and social

media websites to market a company’s producy or service can be stated as social media

marketing (Wallack, 2002). According to Werbin (2011), social media marketing could

simply define as promotion of a brand or products through utilization of social media

channels. Wallack (2002) stated that social media marketing is used not only to promote, but

also emphasis the communication with the audiences. On the other hand, Taprial and Kanwar

(2012) has found social media marketing as the buzzword in the current business world

because it opens a path of free, direct and constant communication between different types

customers which ultimately brings the company closer and familiar with the target customers.

Under SMM, users could utilize the platforms of social media to present their own webpage,

products or services to communicate with the mass and listening to their opinions (Natarajan

et al., 2014). As that was what traditional advertising channels could not achieve,stated that

SMM has emerged as a complementary to the historical internet based promotion strategies

like email subscription newsletter and other internet based ad programs that influence

consumers purchasing behaviour. Social media is most often considered as UGC which may

include various elements like streaming videos, audios, blogs, wikis, posts, chats, images,

podcasting etc. that users in the internet system basically create(Veeck and Hoger, 2014).

Moreover, Lee (2014) has found that sssocial media facilitates not only the user generated

contents but also provides the opportunity to build relationship between various individual,

groups, communities and even with particular brand or products. It provides the opportunity

to make conversation, share information and develop online community.

For its diversified nature, social media marketing has become a key concern for the firm as a

critical tool for conducting its communication and marketing programs more quickly, easily

with less cost and more responses.

2.2 Importance of Social media marketing

SMM has got some identifiable advantages over traditional marketing communications.

Traditional marketing involves one way communication which often called push based

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marketing (Kim and Ko, 2012). Veeck and Hoger (2014) further added that people

sometimes do not expect information but firms push the information regarding their products

to the people. Moreover, the traditional media doesn’t include an interactive mode of

communication where social media marketing involves not only two way or interactive mode

of communication but also facilitates dialogue with people to have a better understanding

about their needs (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Social media marketing that passed along or

shared among friends had a more powerful impact on advertisement recall, brand awareness

and purchase intention than the traditional paid advertisements (Charron et al., 2006).

Between 2002 and 2004, reliance on television decreased from 51% to 41%; from 46% to

42% on newspaper and from 38% to 27% on printed magazines. The only increase shown

was the Internet; from 14% to 21% (Chen, 2013). Moreover, in the traditional communication

model, the components of promotional mix were organized in a collaborative way, such as

the schedule, format and medium of communications which were instructed collaboratively

between the firms and its paid agency (Taylor, 2008). However, the existence of social media

has changed the situation and information is no longer wholly controlled by the company.

Instead, customers can freely talk about the brands and products online and can feel free to

share with anyone they liked (Wallack, 2002).Apart from the advantages over traditional

marketing communications, it has also created other advantages too for people. First of all,

marketing with social media could certainly boost the exposure and awareness of a firm on

the internet and promote the brand and its products and communicate with potential

customers (Taprial and Kanwar, 2012). Besides, social media marketing was beneficial to

both business owners and consumers in the sense that an exchange platform was created. In

addition, activities under social media marketing (SMM) provided an occasion for reducing

consumer’s misunderstanding and prejudice towards the company (Richard, 2013).

Meanwhile, SMM could evaluate company value under the great platform provided by social

media for exchanging sources and opinions (Kim and Ko, 2012). In other words, SMM

helped enhancing and managing customer relationship for brands. More importantly, through

social media marketing, companies can build community for its products and business. Most

social media enable users to freely create and join communities such as Facebook, Twitter,

LinkedIn and so forth (Joel, 2015). Communities are extremely valuable and beneficial to

marketers and entrepreneurs due to the extremely high accessibility to the right group of

target customers (Fisher, 2014). On the other hand, it made consumers feeling closer with the

brand and therefore might be a source of loyal customers (Taprial and Kanwar, 2012).

Moreover, it has widened the firm’s ability to motivate the customers purchase intention.

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There are few challenges of social media marketing; first, the problem is the nature of social

media –UGC (user generated content). Negative impacts to the reputation of the firm arise as

a large amount of information regarding its products and services were generated and

discussed among individuals without any control (Mangold and Faulds, 2009).Second, there

are numerous choices of social media and many companies are using them. Therefore, how to

choose the best and differentiate from competitors are also the top concern of marketers now-

a-days (Taprial and kanwar, 2012).

2.3 Approaches of Social media marketing

The basic approaches which are called as passive strategies and active strategies have a

significant impact on the social media marketing (Veeck and Hoger, 2014). The passive

approach suggests that SM may be critical source for market related information and it may

have elements like blogs, social community contents and online organizations where people

can express and share their opinions and comment on brands, products and services (katona,

2013). Business firms can find a critical source to fetch information and analyse them

properly to have thorough review of what customers say about them and their brands and

grab the attention of the customers (Mitchell, 2002).On the other hand Das (2013) has added

that these passive media does not actively involve the marketing of brands and products of

the firms. They promote the brand passively with a limited view. Auker (2014) has found that

social media can not only be used as direct marketing and public relation tools but also can

act as a useful tool for communication through online advertising , sales promotion through

the various offers. He further added that these types of social media fall under the dimension

of active approach of social media. It includes major social Medias like Facebook, LinkdIn,

Youtube, Instagram and Twitter and many other forms of social networking sites and other

creativity – work sharing sites.

2.3.1 TwitterTwitter can be said to be as one of the most popular form of social networking sites that

creates the path and opportunity for the firms by enabling them to promote their products,

services and brands through the limited 140 characters that may appear on follower’s home

page (Joe, 2012). Twitter provides the opportunity to many firms to link Twitter’s messages

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to the various websites photos, videos, facebook profile and various products’ websites. Its

announcement is considered as reliable mentorship and often facilitates many companies to

come up with certain advertising solution to some problem (Auker, 2014). The speed of

response and the response rate are quite high and it has got huge number of users and daily

tweet volumes are numerous (Schirr, 2013).

2.3.2 FacebookFacebook is a form of social media which provides pages that are more elaborated and

fascinating than the twitter and other social networking sites (Akyol, 2013). Facebook can act

as an important tool for social media marketing by providing the firm the path for posting

various videos, images, testimonials, short and long description about the firm and its

various brands (katona, 2013). Woo (2014) has identified that Facebook has provided the

path for creating fan pages and through they encourage the firms to build online community

for their brands and by like and comment button consumers can interact with the firm and its

brands. Rojer (2011) futher added that the fan pages of facebook involves updated

information regarding the firm and its brands which provides enriched information and

motivates the fans and other people to fetch knowledge about the firm and its brands and

ultimately influence their purchase intention .

2.3.3 LinkedInLinkedIn is another popular form social networking sites that is customized for the business

professionals and provide the opportunity to the firms to prepare a professional profile for

themselves and their businesses to have good contact with the other professionals and

businesses (katona, 2013). Joe (2012) has found that members of LinkedIn can enjoy the

facility to promote their various social networking activities onto their LinkedIn profile page

through the use of various widgets. Woo (2014) further added that LinkedIn facilitates the

firms and various members to stimulate and generate sales leads, make purchase intention

among them and generate business partners as well. Rojer (2011) argued that LinkedIn

members have the opportunity to use Company pages which resembles the Facebook pages

and that facilitates the firms to promote their brands and products and make an interaction

with the customers. This site also acts as a source of information for employee recruitment

for the many firms.

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2.3.4 InstagramThe user engagement rate of Instagram is incresing at higher rate than that of Facebook and

Twitter (Millson, 2012). A study estimates that Instagram has become more pervasive and

around 93% brands prefer instagram to be their part of promotional mix.(Veeck and Hoger,

2014). Taylor (2008) has identified the use of Instagram in case of firms and organizations, as

to catch the attention of their prescriptive spectators through storing and sharing imagery in a

rich, visual environment by enabling to interact with actual and potential customer base.

Dutta (2014) has further added that many firms now vigorously encourage and implement

their visual marketing strategy by using this mobile app by capturing the attention of the

market segment and stimulating purchasing interest of them on the company’s products and

services. Instagram is supported by both android system and apple.

2.3.5 You TubeThis social media includes video and audio files that facilitates firms to post their stories,

events and successful entities in form of video blogging which may create a strong

stimulation in the mind of current and potential customers (Taylor, 2008). Millward (2012)

considered You Tube as carrying the reach media contents. Firms can also make their ads in

sync with various popular videos and music to promote their items and services. Firms also

have the facility to sponsor a video in the you tube.

2.4 Customer purchase intent:

Customer purchase intent is the most complex scenario of customer psychology because here

customers decided to purchase products from any particular brand or particular products after

evaluating certain key factors (Weinberg and Berger, 2011). Morison (2011) has stated

customer purchase intent can be influenced by several factors and organisation must focus on

this and design special strategies to attract this to get purchases in favour of it. Millson (2012)

has narrated that customers generally shows different type of purchase behaviour while

purchasing the products based on the involvement level and quality of the products and

organisation must put special consideration on these different behaviour to design different

types of strategies which will be effective towards different types of customers for getting

maximum purchases from them and making them loyal to the company. On the other hand,

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Chinomona and Sandada (2013) explained that customer purchase intention can be

influenced by the demographic condition of the customers while geographic dimension is

also playing significant role because customers generally shows different purchase intention

based on the geographic conditions, which must be key consideration for the business

organisations at the time of designing strategies. Fan and Sokorai (2011) believed that for

making the organisation successful in the business market authority must take decision for

making and designing appropriate strategies to influence customer purchase behaviour and

intention because without doing so, it is not possible to get customers’ preference to get

purchase in favour of the organisation. According to Millson (2012) , sustainable growth and

development of the organisation is only possible through proper analysis of the customer

purchase intention and behaviour because it can help to make the organisation for profitable,

getting more liquid and overall gaining competitive advantages by getting purchase over the

competitors. Das (2014) has defined customer purchase intent is as the customer’s interest in

and likelihood of purchasing particular items (Kim and ko, 2010). Weignberg and Berger

(2011) critically emphasized that customer purchase intent is the most complex scenario of

customer psychology because here customers decided to purchase products from any

particular brand or particular products after evaluating certain key factors.

Figure: Hierarchy of effects model

Source: www.superbrand.net, (2015)

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Huan (2012) explained that purchase intention was closely associated with awareness

(cognitive stage) and preference stage (affective stage) towards a brand or a product.

Consequently, the awareness, knowledge and preference would form an attitude towards the

brand and product which in turn affecting consumer’s buying intention. Customer

relationship was formed by the attitude towards a brand and therefore purchase intention was

also to be influenced by this relationship (Lee and Lee, 2013). Cutomers purchase intention

can be influenced by several factors and firms must focus on this and design effective

strategies to attract them and get purchase in favour of them (Goel,2014). Morison (2014)

critically analyzed and found that customers typically show various purchased behaviour

while purchasing the products which are based on involvement level and quality of the

products and organisation must put special consideration on these different behaviour to

design deffernt strategies which will be effective towards different types of customers for

getting maximum purchases from them and making them loyal to the company. On the other

hand Huang (2012) explained that customer purchase intention can be influenced by

demographic condition of the customers while geographic dimension is also playing

significant role because customers generally shows different purchase intention based on the

geographic condition of the customers, which must be key consideration for the business

organisation at the time of designing strategies. Le Roux and Kremer ( 2014) stated that for

attaining the success in the business market , marketers must make effective decision and

strategies to influence customer purchase behaviour and intention because it is not possible to

get customers preferences without doing so. According toMarsha l(2011), sustainable growth

and development of the firm is only possible through proper analysis of the customer

purchase intention and behaviour because it can help the firm to make the firm more

profitable, getting more liquid assets and over ally gaining competitive advantages by getting

purchase over the competitors.

Schirr (2013) has found that consumers make their purchase intention on a particular brand

or product based on the need of that product, availability of that product, quality and benefit

sought by the product, services associated with product and the available information of that

product. Fisher (2014) further added that before making a purchase of a new product and

brand, consumers go through several stages of buying readiness stages. Akyol (2013)

identified that the buyer readiness stages involve awareness, knowledge, liking, preference,

conviction and purchase. Among this the first two stages are called cognitive stage which

involves being aware about the brand and searching information about it. This information

21

search has become more comfortable because of the different form of social media.

According to (Marshal, 2011) in the present world, information is overloading online and

offline. Therefore, consumer’s purchase intention would easily be influenced by external

environmental factors during their decision process. For example, by participating in social

media activities, consumers would be exposed to tones of products information and

promotion and become aware of certain products. Russell (2012) has identified the fact that

by reading information of product and comments of others, they were able to acquire

knowledge so as to form liking and preference to the product. These are how external

environment especially social media, is influencing consumers purchase intention.

Consumers search the information regarding various brands and products from multiple

sources and form their attitude toward the firms’ brands and products (Saluja and Singh,

2014). Samson (2011) added that Based on the information and previous experiences about

products, they make the preferences and purchase intention regarding the product. Dutta

(2013) further added that In the past, they used to collect information from traditional

communicational channels like TV, Radio, Newspaper, Mail, Magazine, Billboards etc. But,

now they are more willing to search the information that are easily available to them and

social media marketing facilitates that availability of information more easily at their hand.

Weignberg and berger (2011) has got the evidence that consumers are switching from the

traditional sources of information to online information like Social media in the present

context. Social media has become a platform for mass communication and creating

influences on the customers mind and thus creating purchase intention in favour of their

brand (Piltz, 2013).

In sum, purchase intention can be used to estimate a consumer’s potential contributions to a

firm or brand. Thus understanding factors that are influencing customer’s purchase intent is

extremely significant to a firm. In this way, they could forecast their future profits, attract

new customers as well as retain their current customers.

2.5 Relationship between social media marketing and customer purchase intent:

Social media is emerging as an important tool for influencing customers and ultimately their

purchase intent which refers that both social media and customers purchase intent are co-

22

related (Saluja and Singh, 2014). Weinberg and Berge (2011) have argued that people are

now engaging at huge rate in social media as an alternative of mainstream media and also

passing a significant time there, which can be taken as a chance to influence the customers

and their purchase intent by showing picture, live streaming about products, sharing

information and creating online word-of-mouth. Kumar (2014) further added that social

media marketing is getting so much popularity that almost every large organisation is now

introducing social media marketing because it opens a path to reach the target customers at

cheap cost, which can help the organisation to influence customer purchase intent. Besides,

Fan and Sokorai (2011) expressed that it helps to make the organisation transform into a click

and mortal company from the traditional brick and mortal company, which can help the

organisation to reach both online and on store customers by influencing their purchase intent.

Moreover, Lee (2013) expressed that social media marketing is really playing a vital role in

this information technology era by engaging more customers and attracting their purchase

intent. Levy (2013) has found that social media is flourishing as a critical tool for influencing

customers and persuading their purchase intention to the firms products and services which

indicates that both social media and customers purchase intent are correlated. Now people are

influenced more by external environmental factors and social media has performed a critical

role as a external source of information to the people and influencing their attitudes. Now,

consumers are more cling to several kinds of social media to conduct research on information

to assist their decision making (Suki, 2011). In particular, social networking sites had

significant impact on purchase decision of internet users visiting those sites (Weinberg and

Berger, 2011). They continued to point out consumers who visited social media to get

information made better purchase decision than those without. According to research done by

DEI Worldwide (2008), 70% of consumers gathered information from participating in social

media. Besides, 49% of these customers would make use of the information they obtained on

social media to make purchase decisions.

Moreover, Social media marketing was perceived as a more trustworthy source than

traditional marketing communication tools and promotional mix regarding to information and

products (, 2013). Now-a-days, consumers actively search for and sought various types of

product and service related information in the internet by interacting with the people on the

social networking sites. Many of them basically search for other’s comments again and again

before making purchase(Taylor, 2008). According to Blackshaw and Nazzaro (2006), over

60% of consumers trusted the comments posted by other users. Besides, 78%of worldwide

23

customers believed the reviews regarding products and services written by online consumers

than any other sources. Aljasir (2013) critically analyzed and found that social media

marketing has got more popularity that almost every large organisation is now introducing

social media marketing as it opens a path to reach the target customers at cheap cost, which

can help the organisation to influence customer purchase intent. Tuten and Solomon

(2013)stated that it helps the firm to turn itself from traditional brick and mortar to click and

mortar company, which can help the organisation to reach both online and on store customers

by influencing their purchase intent. This social media marketing is really playing a vital role

in this information technology by engaging more customers and attracting their purchase

intent.

Though social media marketing has got immense popularity, it is still essential to reappraise

the traditional media and social media marketing can be used in line with the traditional

media but not as the only mean of communication for the firm.

2.6 Conceptual framework: Conceptual framework provides the opportunity to visualize a theoretical concept by

summarizing the theory, assumptions, rules and principles as a broad concept. It provides the

means to make a brief review of the theories at a glance within a short time period. A

conceptual framework regarding social media marketing and customer purchase intent is

shown below.

24

Facebook

Twitter

Google Plus

LinkedIn

YouTube

Customer purchase intent

25

Instagram

Figure: Conceptual framework of Social media marketing and customer purchase intent

Source: Tuten and Solomon, (2013)

Through this chapter, the readers could have more in depth understanding about the key

terms such as social media marketing, purchase intention which were related with this

research. The useful secondary data collected from journals, books, articles and so forth were

well organized and presented for the purpose of the following study. Conceptual model was

also created to get proper and insights to the research key terms and their implications.

26

3 Chapter Three: Research methodologyThe research methodology provides the way to systematically analyse the methods and

procedures that used in the field of the research. This consists of the thorough analysis of

procedures and methods that are in connection with the research. This particular chapter of

the research basically described the research methods used by the researcherto analyse the

research findings and proper justification has also been made.

3.1 Research designAccording to Brace (2008), various empirical study and attempts suggested that research

investigation can be developed from the various activities and those activities will be

described properly on the study. The research design falls on two categories. It can

exploratory which suggests that various empirical and historical researches have done on the

research topic earlier. Besides, Research can also be analytical which involves critical

thinking and thorough evaluation of facts and information relative to the research being

conducted. Descriptive and predictive research design also prevalent to represent the

forecasting the future and upcoming implications(Wenzel, 2012).

The social media marketing has become popular concept in marketing and communication

and historically multiple studies were conducted to find the impact and relationship of SMM

on the customer purchase intent. For this reason, the researcher used the exploratory research

where the researcher reinforced the studies conducted earlier defined by Biddle and Emmett

(2013). The purpose of the research can’t be served well by the alternative approaches. The

researcher here focused on basically from the new dimensions and ideas.

3.2 Research Philosophy

In this section, researcher basically show and reflect the vital assumptions of the author

where the researcher portrait the research strategy to develop a link between the knowledge

and data which are acquired through various process.

EpistemologyEpistemology is the theory of knowledge, study of knowing the presuppositions and

foundations and its extent and validity. It gives us the idea of how do we know things, what

27

do we know, why we know, is what we know and what are limitation of the knowledge

(Emmett and Briddle, 2010).

InterpretivismInterpretivism involves researcher to interpret elements of the study, thus interpretivism

integrate human interest into a study. Interpretivism uses the previous studies and information

of the individuals as the input of the research. In case of interpretivism, the outcomes and

comments of the individuals act as the basis of the research and method (Wenzel, 2012).

PhenomenologyPhenomenology refers to a person’s proper perception of the meaning of an event,

knowledge, achievement, accomplishments, as opposed to the event as it exists externally to

(outside of) that person (Kirkwood and Zerbe, 2012).

PositivismPositivism is considered as the most critical method of research philosophy which states that

researcher uses numerical, theoretical and factual data by bringing relevance to the current

situation or objective of the study. Various factual information is sought and collected from

various researches, secondary sources and measurements relating to the past data and

experiences that are considered to be more dependable (Lim and Mcaleer, 2008).

This research is developed on the data which is derived from various types of primary

sources and they are raw in nature for making the outcomes and data more reliable and

suitable for the study. The credibility of the research was also increased by the positivism

because it uses more relevant and accurate data without any manipulation. To ensure the

reliability and validity, the use of assumptions and hypothetical data were avoided which also

made this method perfect for the research to follow. In this research, more realistic and

practical data are used to reflect the realistic situation. No hypothetical data and assumptions

are used in this research. That’s why the researcher decided to use positivism for conducting

the research.

3.3 Research Approach

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For conducting a particular research the researcher can use two approaches. The first one is

inductive approach and the other is deductive approach. The proper jurisdiction and

justification for using a particular approach are described properly with explanation in below

Figure: Research approach

Source: Nair, 2005

Deductive ResearchA deductive approach is related with the development of hypothesis based on the existing

theory and then design a research strategy to test the hypothesis. Deductive theories are used

by the researchers because it provides the opportunity and area to make a proper use of the

current successful works to conduct research which make the research more viable and

validate because of the proper use of knowledge, data and theories and approaches (Rider et

al., 2013).

Figure: Deductive research approach

Source: www.socialresearchmethods.net, (2015)

Inductive ApproachThere is a profound similarity between interpretivism philosophy and the inductive approach

and this inductive approach allows the researcher to analyse and interpret different real life

stories to get particular rational which facilitates the path of the research (Kahl et al., 2012).

29

This approach represents the method of creating critically evaluating the situation and current

facts.

Deductive approach seems to be much more important for the research purpose as the

researcher searches for the way to carry on more reliable study. Researcher has used

deductive research approach in this research because researcher needed to develop hypothesis

and assumptions based on the existing theories and knowledge because this research

technique emphasizes on using existing knowledge, assumptions and theories to conduct the

current research. Besides, that reason researcher also found it appropriate as it provides the

opportunity to use primary data for this research which is better suited with the deductive

approach. That’s why, this research was based on the deductive research approach.

3.4 Research StrategyResearch strategy basically involves case study analysis, observation, experiments, survey

etc.(kim, 2013). Interview strategy represents that the research will be conducted by

collecting information through taking interview. Case study states the process of conducting

research by collecting data and use logics from the case study analysis of different situations

(Joel, 2011) Observation refers to the act or process of observing something or someone

carefully to gain information and conducting the research on the basis of observation.

Experimental research represents that research must be conducted in the laboratory or under

close area. Survey research strategy represents a way of conducting research that includes

collection of data about what and how people think about particular matter by initializing

question based or statistical surveys.

Researcher used the survey method of research strategy because research collected primary

data for this research by using survey questionnaire for collecting responses from the selected

sample size. Besides, experimental strategy might not be appropriate for this research and

case study couldn’t be considered as better choice than survey method. Observation method

didn’t give appropriate and numerical data for the research. This research was based on

numerical data, so survey method was considered as best for conducting this research.

Besides, interview method could also be applied as researcher collected information and data

from different managers, employees and students. So the researcher has used both survey and

30

interview method of research strategy for this research because this strategy fits the

researcher and research purpose best.

3.5 Research MethodResearch method describes the way researchers collect information from the respondents and

other sources. The research methods can vary based on the data collection method,

instrument types that are used in the research, data sources and data sampling methods. Most

often, researchers used the two categories of research method.

Quantitative Research StrategyThe quantitative research method represent that numerical data will be collected to conduct

the research which conveys the philosophy of deductive research to determine whether a

theory exists or not. The proper uses and measurements of numerical data are ensured by that

research strategy and hypothesis also made based on numeric data through which researcher

find the relationship between theory and real world. This strategy is said to be affected low

by the biasness and all the data are formed in the mathematical ways in this strategy that

yields standard results (Golafshani, 2003).

Qualitative research strategyIn case of qualitative research strategy, the researcher searches for information in the

qualitative form and tries make a theory based on various assumptions. In this strategy, there

is a huge chance of biasness because of the researcher’s own assumption and evaluation and

researcher uses generally interview method for collecting information from the respondents

(Krishnaswamy et al., 2006).

This qualitative approach can be considered by the researcher if there is not enough

numerical data and the research requires the personal insights and knowledge to make

relation with the theory and real example. The researcher must put more emphasis on the

quantitative approach as this methods provide more precise and accurate information and

result where different statistical and mathematical tools are used that represent that represent

true results (Saunders et al., 2009). That’s why the researcher has used the quantitative

research strategy in this research as the researcher also applied deductive research approach

and collected the research data in numerical form.

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3.6 Data Collection Method

For making the research more validate and informative, research data provides the researcher

more opportunities than any other factors. Researcher uses primary data as well as secondary

data to conduct the study. By using appropriate data investigation method researcher usually

collects research data. Researcher chooses to use whether primary data or secondary data or

both of them by analysing the findings of data investigation. Thedata that are collected

specifically for a particular research and collected directly from first-hand experience are

often called primary data. Secondary data means data which have already collected for

another purpose and they exist already in some cases, studies and sources (McQuarrie, 1996).

The data sources are shown in following figures

Figure: Data collection method

Source: (Tsai, et al.,2012)

The researcher used both primary and secondary sources of data for preparing the research

and those would be sought by survey and interview technique. Researcher’s objective of

preparing this research paper would properly be served by merging primary and secondary

data collected through survey questionnaire. Secondary data were collected from different

books, online journals, and newspaper, article and research papers.

3.7 Data Sampling Method

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Sampling is known as the procedure for marking a vital part of a population for making

assumption of the whole populations more easily and within limited time frame. Sampling

can be classified as probability and non-probability sampling.

Non- probability sampling is a technique of choosing the samples which will represent the

characteristics of the population in a subjective and more intuitional and judgmental way. In

case of non- probability sampling technique, the researchers gather samples in a way that

doesn’t yield equal opportunities for all the items in the population of being selected (Brace,

2013). Besides, it is based on the subjective and factual information where probability

sampling ensures collection of numerical information.

Probabilty sampling can be identified as the technique of choosing the samples from the

population in a way that facilitates each unit in the population of having equal chance of

being selected Probability sampling can be made through three techniques as stratified

sampling, random sampling and systematic sampling. Among the probability random

sampling the simple random sampling is considered to be most easiest and mostly used

probability sampling technique. According to Sinkovics et al., (2005), sampling is the act or

process of choosing respondents to participate on the research process. Wenzel (2012)

classified sampling technique as random, cluster and stratified sampling.

In this research, the researcher has decided to use probability sampling method as researcher

found that this method served well the concept of quantitative research strategy wherehe

found that non- probability sampling technique served well the qualitative research

strategy.The researcher also used the random sampling method for this research because the

researcher found it this method as devoid of biasness and this sampling method served the

researchers objectives well by ensuring that each respondent of the population has equal

chance to be selected as sample. The researchers basically used to search for several

arguments and opinions that facilitates finding actual estimation. Considering all the

sampling techniques, the researcher has found the random sampling best suitable for

matching the research purpose and in this research a particular class of respondents were not

highlighted. This research included a wide variety of sample which represented strong

observations and alternative arguments. On the contrary, the researcher often found it pretty

rigid and difficult to use cluster sampling because of its inherent difficult nature and stratified

sampling might not fulfill the requirements and expectations of the researcher.

33

Researcher decided to collect sample size of 80 respondents based on some criteria lke

income, profession etc. which were assumed to properly reflect the all segments of the

population. The researcher has found it quite difficult for studying and analysing whole

population because ASDA has several limitation in analysing all the age group people,

income people thoroughly. That’s why the researcher determined several criteria like income

and professions as the basis for collecting 80 samples from various stores, professionals and

university students from several locations and another reason for choosing 80 sample sizes is

inadequacy of time and resources of the researcher.

3.8 Data Analysis tools and techniques

The researcher can use descriptive technique to investigate background and profile of the

respondents to estimate their perception regarding the associated the risk of trusting social

media as a reliable source of information and making purchase decision based on that

information. Some typical measurement such as mean, frequency distribution as well as

presentation of data through charts used to investigate data gathered through questionnaires.

Mean as well as frequency analysis used to measure the actual influence which is sought with

performance evaluation. Regression analysis is popularly used technique to measure the

result of independent parameters over reliant variable (ketchen and Bergh, 2004). Regression

analysis can be used to measure such situation to find out the relationship and effect amongst

the dependent variable and independent variables. The qualitative analysis of data was not

included as the researcher focused basically on the analysis of relationship and impact of

social media marketing on the customer purchase intent. Result and data analysis was

conducted by using SPSS that enables the researcher to perfectly interpret the statistical tools

for data analysis and result presentation. In this approach, the researcher also made sure the

proximity and intensity of variables.

3.9 Limitation of the studyThe probability of partiality and biasness pops up, as the researcher might hide various

critical data in the survey possess and question’s responses from the respondents also might

possess risk of biasness. A major limitation had been that the respondents personally made a

decision to participate in the interview process, despite the respondents are basically chosen

34

randomly. If the respondents made any distinction or become overly aware of the final results

of the study, it might harm the overall results of the research and representative nature of

population by the sample. One question always pops up whether the respondents are

providing true or false information. This research is focused on the speciality of several

groups. If it happens then the research result just become specific and limited to people who

participated within the study.

3.10 Ethical consideration

The researcher must put a caution as well as consideration in relation to the investigation and

interview process to ensure that the respondents were not possessed any harm either

physically or mentally throughout the interview process. The first thing researcher has to

ensure that the respondents can end up the interview voluntarily and they must be informed

about the purpose, character and period of the investigation. Voluntary involvement,

informed permission, confidentiality of respondents provided information basically formed

the ethical rights regarding the respondent of the research. The theory of knowledgeable

consent says that the respondent must be notified or informed about the purpose of the

research and the period it takes during the interview process as well as the associated risk

popping up in the research and the researcher must ask for permission from the respondents.

This research must consider the IRB acclaimed knowledgeable consent type of research. The

actual participants must be informed by the researcher about the purposes of the research, ask

for permission through written document, inform the time duration and associated risk active

in the risk before documenting begins.

35

4 Chapter Four: Result & Discussion

4.1 Result

This part includes the result analysis and discussion of the result that has been found by the

statistical analysis of the data collected from the sample. In the questionnaire, the customers

were asked several questions regarding the store layout and design of the Sainsbury stores

and if these factors influence the customer buying decision in the retail industry. The

researcher has found several findings that might be shocking to the business world along with

taking contradictory opinion to some other related results.

4.1.1 Demographic Profile of the Respondents

In the sample, 80 customers of Asda were selected to whom several question was asked about

the layout and design of the Sainsbury stores. The respondents were selected based on race,

gender, age and profession. However, both male and female customers got the preference to

get selected into the survey. There was a requirement to be more than 17 years old for every

customer. However, Most of the customers were from the British and Other Europe areas.

36

Table 1: Descriptive result of Demographic Profile of the Respondents

Frequency PercentMale 59 0.7Female 21 0.3Total 80 1

Frequency Percent18- 30 27 0.32857142931- 39 23 0.34285714340- 49 17 0.18571428650- 59 10 0.071428571Over 60 3 0.071428571Total 80 1

Frequency PercentMarried 44 0.6Unmarried 36 0.4Total 80 1

Frequency PercentFull-time employment 31 0.3Part-time employment 24 0.342857143Student 12 0.171428571Unemployed 7 0.1Housewife/husband 4 0.057142857Retired 2 0.028571429Total 80 1

Frequency PercentBelow £10000 2 0.028571429£10000- £15000 10 0.142857143£15001- £20000 23 0.185714286£20001- £25000 20 0.285714286£25001- £30000 10 0.142857143£30001- £40000 9 0.128571429Above £40000 6 0.085714286Total 80 1

Gender

Age

Marital Status

Employment Status

Income

4.1.2 Cronbach's alphaCronbach’s alpha refers the reliability and consistency of the independent variables in

providing actual and reliable information and output. The value of this analysis varies from

37

0.00 to 1.00 where value for than 0.5 refers high consistency and reliability. Almost all the

variables scores more than 0.50 which refers the variables that are used in the research are

reliable enough and respondents were consistent in their responses to the survey questions.

Table 2: Descriptive result of Cronbach's alpha

Variables Cronbach's

alpha

Independent

Variables

Facebook 0.83

Google Plus 0.74

Twitter 0.66

LinkedIn 0.72

Friendfeed 0.53

Orkut 0.49

Dependent variable Customer Purchase Intent (CPI) 0.56

4.1.3 FacebookFacebook is the most widely used social media sites throughout the world because of its

acceptance throughout the world. Facebook is really affecting anf created a new dimension in

the social media marketing by adding different features for advertising. Researcher has asked

three questions regarding the Facebook to the respondents in the survey. The 35% of the

overall respondents were strongly agreed with the research questions, 30% were agreed and

only 4% and 8% consecutively were somewhat agreed or disagreed with survey questions

38

which refer the respondents are very much positive about the positive impacts of Facebook

on Asda’s customers. Besides, the average mean is more than 6 and average mode is also 6

which refer the positive influence of Facebook on Asda’s customers’ buying intent.

Table 3:Descriptive result of Facebook

Facebook

Strongly Agree 35%

Agree 30%

Somewhat agree 19%

Neither agree nor disagree 3%

Somewhat disagree 4%

Disagree 8%

Strongly Disagree 1%

Total Number of Respondents 100%

Mean 6.19

Mode 6

39

Strongly Agree 35%

Agree30%

Somewhat agree 19%

Neither agree nor disagree

3%


Disagree8%


Chart Title

Figure 1: Descriptive result of Facebook

4.1.4 Google Plus

Google Plus is now getting popularity in social media world but not as much popular as

Facebook. Asda also uses the Google Plus for its social media marketing. From 80

respondents, 25% were strongly agreed with the survey questions GP1,GP2 and GP3 where

11% were somewhat agreed. 19% were somewhat disagreed whether only 2% were strongly

disagreed. The average mean of the survey questions’ frequency is .74 which all refers the

positive opionion of the respodnets regarding the Google Plus. Besides, the mode value is 3.9

which refers the somewhat agreed of the respondents. Overall survey findings show that

respondents are somewhat agreed about its impacts.

Table 4: Descriptive result of Google Plus

Google Plus

Strongly Agree 25%

Agree 15%

40

Somewhat agree 11%



Disagree 6%



Mean 5.74

Mode 3.9

Strongly Agree

Agree Somewhat agree


Somewhat disagree

Disagree Strongly Disagree

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

25%

15%

11%

2%

19%

6%

2%

Google Plus

Figure 2: Descriptive result of Google Plus

41

4.1.5 Twitter

Twitter is widely used social media site mainly in the western countries; it can enable the

users to give 130 words short tweet facilities with the photo and video sharing opportunity.

Asda uses twitter to conducts social media marketing. Researcher has used TW1, TW2 and

TW3 code to use three survey questions for getting the response from the respondents. 27%

of 80 respondents were strongly agreed, 10% were somewhat agreed, 9 % were neutral

whether 15% strongly disagreed, which refers respondents are positive towards to the

effectiveness of the twitter. The average mean was 5.32 which refers the somewhat agree of

the respondents whether the average mode is low which also justify the mean’s findings.

Table 5: Descriptive result of Twitter

Twitter

Strongly Agree 27%

Agree 12%

Somewhat agree 10%



Disagree 15%


42


Mean 5.32

Mode 3.9

Strongly Agree

Agree

Somewhat agree


Somewhat disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

27%

12%

10%

9%

12%

15%

15%

Twitter

Figure 3: Descriptive result of Twitter

4.1.6 LinkedInLinkedIn is now become the biggest professional sites in the world with huge coverage of

corporate personnel. Asda uses LinkedIn for attracting potential employees and find the

corporate buyers. Respondents showed that average 15% were strongly agreed the three

survey questions, 12% were agreed with survey questions but 16% were somewhat disagreed

and 9% were strongly disagreed. The average mean is 5.14 and mode is 4.5 which all refer

the respondents’ positive opinions regarding the impact of LinkedIn in customer purchase

intent. So, it can be concluded that respondents are somewhat agreed with the survey

questions.

Table 6: Descriptive result of LinkedIn

LinkedIn

43

Strongly Agree 15

Agree 12

Somewhat agree 11

Neutral 7

Somewhat disagree 16

Disagree 10

Strongly Disagree 9

Total Number of Respondents 80

Mean 5.11

Mode 4.5

44

15

12

117

16

10

9

LinkedIn

Strongly Agree Agree Somewhat agree Neutral Somewhat disagree DisagreeStrongly Disagree

Figure 4: Descriptive result of LinkedIn

4.1.7 YouTubeYouTube is another great medium of social networking sites which huge number of video. It

has become a biggest platform to exhibit the products and its services through video clips.

Asda uses the YouTube as a part of social media marketing. Of all the 80 respondents, 16%

of the respondents were strongly agreed with the researcher’s three survey questions. 20%

were somewhat agreed, 19% were neutral whether 9% were disagreed and 8% were strongly

disagreed. The mean and mode is consecutively 5.56 and 4.9 which all refer the respondents

showed positive impacts about the YouTube on customer purchase intent.

Table 7: Descriptive result of Friend-Feed

Youtube

Strongly Agree 16%

Agree 18%

Somewhat agree 20%

45



Disagree 9%



Mean 5.56

Mode 4.9

Strongly Agree

Agree

Somewhat agree


Somewhat disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Series1

Figure 5: Descriptive result of YouTube

4.1.8 InstagramInstagram is the most popular medium of the photo sharing social media site. Respondents

showed that average 8% were strongly agreed the three survey questions, 8% were agreed

with survey questions but 16% were somewhat disagreed and 16% were strongly disagreed.

46

The average mean is 4.23 and mode is 3.21 which all refer the respondents’ positive opinions

regarding the impact of Instagram on customer purchase intent. So, it can be concluded that

respondents are somewhat agreed with the survey questions.

Table 8: Descriptive result of Instagram

Instagram

Strongly Agree 8%

Agree 8%

Somewhat agree 11%

Neutral 18%


Disagree 23%



Mean 4.23

Mode 3.21

47

Instagram

Strongly Agree Agree

Somewhat agree Neutral

Somewhat disagree Disagree

Strongly Disagree

Figure 6: Descriptive result of Instagram

4.1.9 Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)Customer purchase intent has become the biggest focused issue in the whole business world.

Customer are now getting more preferences and organisations are trying to influences the

customer purchase intent. Researcher has designed 3 questions for the survey to identify the

customer purchase intent and researcher has found that 55% were strongly agreed, 25% were

agreed, 7 were neutral whether 3% were disagreed and 2 were strongly disagreed. It refers

respondents were very positive about the customer purchase intent. The average mean and

mode are consecutively 6.44 and 6 which also refers respondents showed positive opinion

about customer purchase intent.

Table 9: Descriptive result of Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)

Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)

Strongly Agree 55%

Agree 25%

48

Somewhat agree 7%



Disagree 3%


Total Number of Respondents 1

Mean 6.44

Mode 6

Strongly Agree

Agree

Somewhat agree


Somewhat disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)

Figure 7: Descriptive result of Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)

49

4.1.10 Correlation AnalysisThe researcher applied statistical analytical tools to calculate the correlation of the variables.

The researcher has found the relation between the customer purchase intent and social media

marketing of Asda stores by the following correlation analysis,

Table 10: Correlation Matrix

Correlations Matrix

Facebook Google

Plus

Twitter LinkedIn FriendFeed Orkut

Facebook 1.00

Google Plus 0.94 1.00

Twitter 0.27 0.39 1.00

LinkedIn 0.57 0.00 0.19 1.00

FriendFeed 0.61 0.90 0.82 0.67 1.00

Orkut 0.93 0.99 0.36 0.20 0.76 1.00

CPI 0.96 0.85 0.55 0.79 0.85 0.85

50

This research findings showed that all the variables are highly correlated with each other

because almost all the values are more than 0.5 which refers the positive relationship exist

between the variables.

4.1.11 Regression Analysis

Table 11: Model Summary of Customer purchase intent

Model Summary

Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate

1 0.214 0.858 0.846 0.737

a. Predictors: (Constant), Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn

The researcher has found that there is a positive relation of 84.6% between the determinants.

So the R square is calculated 84.6%. This means there is 45% impact of the social media

marketing on the customer purchase intent. This explains that 1% change in the social media

marketing of the Asda stores changes the customer buying intent by 0.45%.

Table 12: Coefficient of Regression

Model Unstandardized

Coefficients

Standardized

Coefficients

t Sig.

Std.

Error

51

1 (Constant) 7.121 1.220 5.835 0.000

Facebook 0.078 0.137 0.644 0.570 0.570

Twitter -0.141 0.115 0.543 -1.229 0.222

Google Plus -0.162 0.101 0.237 -1.609 0.111

Instagram -0.188 0.105 0.442 -1.802 0.075

LinkedIn 0.233 0.122 0.478 0.689 0.605

YouTube 0.058 0.185 0.309 0.130 0.235

From the following table, the effects of the independent variables on customer purchase

intent can be measured and referred. The independent variable attention towards detail has

the value of beta 0.644 on Employee Motivation, Twitter has 0.543, Google Plus has 0.237,

Instagram has 0.03, LinkedIn has 0.36 and YouTube has 0.15. it can be said that independent

variables has positive effects on the dependent variable.

4.1.12 Which one is the most attractive and influencing social media?

For finding the most perfect social media marketing tools, researcher has added a question on

the survey for getting response from the respondents. From 80 respondents, 47% referred that

Facebook is the most attraction and influential social media site. Besides, twitter has got

23%, YouTube has got 20% and Instagram has got 10% responses. So, it can be concluded

that Facebook is the most effective and influential social media marketing tools.

52

Face-book; 47

Twitter; 23

Youtube, 20

Instagram, 10

Which one is the most attractive and in-fluencing social media?

Figure 8: Descriptive result of Most Attractive social Media

4.1.13 Through which social media you are getting influenced mostly for purchasing the products of ASDA?

Influencing customer purchase, Facebook has scored 55% from the respondents overall

response. On the other hand, Google Plus scored 12%, Twitter has got 10 responses and

YouTube has got 23% responses. So, it can be concluded that Facebook influences the

customers to purchase products from Asda most.

Facebook55%

Twitter10%

Google Plus12%

YouTube23%

Through which social media you are getting influenced mostly for purchas-

ing the products of ASDA?

Facebook Twitter Google Plus LinkedIn

Figure 9: Descriptive result of Which Social Media Customers are influenced to purchase the

products

53

4.1.14 Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other social media?Social media marketing’s most important part is advertising policy because advertisement is

one of the most important ways to influence customer purchase intent. Respondents

responded that Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other social media

which is supported by 78% respondents whether 22% gave negative responses regarding this

question.

Yes 78%

No22%

Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other so-

cial media?

Yes No

Figure 10: Descriptive result of Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other

social media

4.1.15 Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook?

For this question, 39% respondents were agreed, 7% were strongly agreed, 6% were neutral

and 12% were disagreed. So, it can be said that Twitter has more customized features for its

advertising policies than Facebook and it is supported by the majority respondents.

54

Strongly Agree

Agree

Somewhat Agree

Neither Agree nor Disagree

Somewhat Disagree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

12%

9%

6%

4%

23%

39%

7%

Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook?

Figure 11: Descriptive result of Twitter has more customized features for its advertising

policies than Facebook

4.2 Discussion

Facebook has become the best media for social media become it has got the largest account

holder in the world. According to the customer feedback, the Facebook of the Asda is well-

decorated with all the information which can meet the customers’ demands and queries,

besides it also helps them to communicate direct with the company to learn many things

directly. Pietrobruno (2013)expressed similar opinion about the Facebook because opens the

path to communicate with them directly, demonstrate them different pictures and videos

which can help them attract the customers and their purchase simultaneously. The survey

findings showed that Facebook is very effective as a tool of social media marketing which

can actively helping Asda to influence the customer purchase intent in favour of them by

providing different facilities and scopes towards the customers. From the data analysis it is

clear that Asda has designed it focusing on the customers and customers are very positive

towards the Facebook facilities which are reflected in the frequency of the response of

respondents regarding the Facebook where maximum respondents responded positively and

agreed with its effects. Besides, the average mean of the responses of the respondents

regarding the three survey questions revealed that overall basis respondents agreed with the

positive impacts of the social media on customer purchase intent. The mode, correlation and

55

regression analysis report also shows the similar findings regarding Facebook’s impacts.

Howard et al. (2014) concluded that Facebook is giving the scope for the business

organisation a chance to advertise their company, making a page on it which can help to build

a strong presence in the social media to increase the customer value as well as brand image,

all of which ultimately helpful in gaining customer perception for influencing the customer

purchase intent. Walker (2014) have concludedFacebook is the best medium of the social

media marketing because of its user friendliness and the scopes to use different tools and

apps which make it unique and lucrative for the business organisation for increasing their

business activities to attract customer purchase.

Google plus is not that much popular as social media sites but it contains a large number of

subscribers which can help it as a potential social media sites. Besides, it is now growing

popularity among different part of the world and also among the business community. It is

found that the presence of Asda on Google plus is very appreciable because it puts efforts on

this to attract different customers which can help it to be more effective in the business arena.

The survey findings also support that Google Plus is a very effective tool to conduct the

marketing for influencing the customer purchase intent. Respondents showed positive motion

about the Google plus through their responses or feedback for the three survey questions

which refers concur of them about the positive relationship and positive impact. Besides, the

mean and mode of the frequency of the respondents’ responses is supporting the above

mentioned statement. Regression, cronbach’s alpha and correlation analysis in the data

analysis part reflected that Google plus have positive relationship with other variables and

have positive impacts on the dependent variable as well. According to Veeck and Hoger

(2014), though Google plus has not got so much popularity but it has got potential the market

because of its strong backup and also effectively gaining popularity in the business world as

part of social media marketing because Google has taken many steps to make it more friendly

and attractive by adding many facilities. Walker (2014) have concluded that Google plus is

very effective tool because it gives a proper mixture of different facilities that are not present

in some popular social media sites which makes it very lucrative for the customers and

ultimately lure the business companies to present there for reaching vast number of people or

potential customers there.

56

Twitter is one of the popular social media sites in the world and that’s why, Asda has targeted

this site as tool of social media marketing for increasing traffic on its sites and websites. It is

found that Asda is using twitter to increase the trafficking by sharing different information

and creating direct communication with the customers.Natarajan et al. (2014)have explained

that twitter is very effective in attain customer attention because it describes everything in

short notes, which is convenient for the users and easy to understand, besides it helps the

business organisation to share different things to generate trafficking on its websites and

create a brand image in the social media. Asda uses the Twitter for sharing different pictures

and videos which are helping the customers and also creating awareness about different

things, beside company can get user generated content from twitter with appropriate

feedback. Researcher has found in his survey that, maximum number of respondents gave

positive feedback about the survey questions, besides the average mean and mode is also

supporting the idea of positive impacts of twitter on customer purchase intent. The

regression, correlation analysis are also supporting the same conclusion about positive

relationship other variables and high impact on customer purchase intent. Howard et al.

(2014) concluded that twitter is getting priority in social media marketing because it is

getting more and more subscribers day by day and organisations are trying to grab this vast

potential customers by using the twitter’s scope of talking, communication, exchanging

information, generating feedbacks, creating buzz by showing different picture and videos to

the followers.

According to Pietrobruno (2013), YouTube is the largest video sharing and blogging site in

the whole world with vast amount and collection of videos. Respondents believes that

YouTube has become a big part of social media marketing which opens the platform to share

different videos of the business organisation by demonstrating different positive and benefits

to attract the new customers and potential one. The researcher found that the content of the

Asda on YouTube is satisfactory to attract the customers because there are many attractive

and videos related to review of different goods are given which help the customers to choose

the best one and choose Asda as their suitable store to shopping. The survey findings also

support that YouTube is a very effective tool to conduct the marketing for influencing the

customer purchase intent. Respondents showed positive motion about YouTube through their

responses or feedback for the three survey questions which refers concur of them about the

positive relationship and positive impact. Besides, the mean and mode of the frequency of the

57

respondents’ responses is supporting the above mentioned statement. Regression, cronbach’s

alpha and correlation analysis in the data analysis part reflected that YouTube have positive

relationship with other variables and have positive impacts on the dependent variable as well.

Saluja and Singh (2014)found that YouTube opens a path for the business organisation to

show different benefits and uses of the products to the customers and also can post customer

review about the products which all are creating a scope for the business to influence the

customers buying pattern and intent.

LinkedIn is the world biggest professional networking sites where different kinds of

professionals are gathered together for creating a virtual community. According

toDamnjanovic et al. (2012), LinkedIn opens the path of digital marketing where it can reach

business buyers and different professionals by using rich visual content and by offering Value

in Discussion Groups. The researcher found that from the above data analysis it is clear that

the LinkedIn of Sainsbury makes it more aristocratic and attractive where the company

maintains a special system to be filly attentive towards customer purchase intent. The

respondents’ average response was around 5 that mean they are slightly satisfied and

attracted with the LinkedIn of the Asda and to some extent they are neutral. The regression of

the result also shows that there is a positive effect of the LinkedIn on the customer purchase

intent. So, it clear that LinkedIn is effective social media marketing to influence the customer

purchase intent. On the other hand, Natarajan et al. (2014) disagreed that it is not effective in

influencing customers rather it is appropriate in attracting potential and qualified employees

as it is a sites of professionals around the world.

Customer purchase intent is the dependent variable here and researcher has focused

excessively on this variables to find effectiveness of the social media marketing on its. Kim

and Ko (2010) expressed that Customer purchase intent refers the customer purchase

behaviour which he or she usually shows during purchasing a product and by which he or she

always is always influenced to choose a particular product. The customer purchase intent of

the Asda is satisfactory which is proved by the recent growth and increase of market share,

besides the social media marketing is really important for it in this era of information

technology. Asda is trying hard to influence its customers by the social media sites which are

proved by the use of social media sites in its websites with special consideration.

58

Researcher found through its survey questions that respondents are highly positive towards

the survey questions regarding the impact of social media on customer purchase intent.

Almost 80% of the respondents were agreed about the survey questions about the customer

purchase intent. Regression analysis showed all the independent variables are effective and

have some impacts on the customer purchase intent. Besides, correlation analysis shows

positive impacts on customer purchase intent. The average mean and mode value also support

the statement.

katona (2013)concluded that customer purchase behaviour is now depended on many factors

where social media marketing is another big element which are now influencing customers at

high rate and the current technological surge has made the importance of social media

marketing more acute for influencing the customer purchase intent.

According to the survey, Facebook is the most popular social media site of the Asda because

it gives profound opportunity to communicate and involve customers. Customers are getting

influenced mostly by the Facebook for purchasing the products of ASDA which also concur

with the recent survey. Besides, customers are agreed that Facebook advertising policy is

more user friendly than other social media sites in the world. But many people agreed that

Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook.

59

5 Chapter Five: Conclusion and recommendation

5.1 Conclusion

Asda is using social media as great tool of marketing by which it is now generating or

attaining potential benfits which is helping towards its sustainability and profitability. Social

media marketing refers the process of using social media, such as- Facebook, Twitter,

Myspace, Skype, Instragram, LinkedIn, etc in marketingandthus social media marketing

enables the company more competitive by generating opinions, reviews and comments of the

different customers which reflects the current market conditions and scenarios that will help

to design more customer oriented strategy for getting more customer insight and customer

preferences.

Exploring the different aspects and importance of Social media marketing for a retailing

company on the basis of Asda is the first objective of this research. Researcher has

investigated how social media marketing is helping Asda in influencing customer purchase

intent by using different theories, tactics and statistical tools. Social media marketing has got

some identifiable advantages over traditional marketing communications. Traditional

marketing involves one way communication which often called push based marketing. That

means people sometimes do not expect information but firms push the information regarding

their products to the people. This doesn’t include an interactive mode of communication

where social media marketing involves not only two ways or interactive mode of

communication but also facilitates dialogue with people to have a better understanding about

their needs. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn are the key elements of

Asda’s social media marketing. Researcher has clearly identified different aspects and

importance of social media effectively.

Analysing customer purchase intent and different factors related with this of Asda is a

research objective and researcher put different efforts to accomplish this objectives.

Researcher found that customers’ purchase intention can be influenced by several factors and

60

firms must focus on this and design effective strategies to attract them and get purchase in

favour of them. Customers typically show various purchased behaviour while purchasing the

products which are based on involvement level and quality of the products and organisation

must put special consideration on these different behaviour to design different strategies

which will be effective towards different types of customers for getting maximum purchases

from them and making them loyal to the company.

Social media marketing and customer purchase intent are related to each other and to show

the relationship between is an objective of the research. Researcher found that Social media is

flourishing as a critical tool for influencing customers and persuading their purchase intention

to the firms’ products and services which indicate that both social media and customers

purchase intent are correlated. Now people are influenced more by external environmental

factors and social media has performed a critical role as a external source of information to

the people and influencing their attitudes. Now, consumers are more cling to several kinds of

social media to conduct research on information to assist their decision making (Suki, 2011).

In particular, social networking sites had significant impact on purchase decision of internet

users visiting those sites (Saluja and Singh, 2014). Besides, the correlation analysis and

regression analysis also justified the statement that these two topics are related to each other.

From the above discussion and whole research analysis, it is clear that Social media

marketing is crucial to influence customer purchase intent of Asda which is proved by the

research findings and also there is a strong relationship between Social media marketing and

customer purchase intent of Asda which is also proved by the research findings. So, it can be

said that both of the research hypotheses are justified as truth and both are accepted by the

researcher.

61

5.2 Recommendations:

For better outcomes, Asda needs to improve its current social media marketing strategy for

be more effective in gaining customer purchase by influencing their intent. Social media

marketing mainly aims to increase the trafficking in the social media sites and its websites to

present or demonstrate different offers, products, schemes, reviews, information and other

things for influencing customer perception and getting more response. In following some

recommendations are made which will accomplish the last of objective of this research:

Asda needs to be more active in social media sites by increasing its present in more

networking sites because many sites, like- my space, orkut, friends feed, are still

untapped by it which is creating some communication gap with the subscribers of

these social media sites. Besides, it can use Skype to conduct direct communication

with them to make them understand about different topics for influencing customers’

perceptions. Research findings revealed that customers are very eager for the social

media marketing and it will be more effective if asda can cover other potential social

networking sites to cover more potential customers. More coverage on the social

media sites will enable it to gain more potential customers which will increase the

impact of social media marketing more.

Researcher found that mismanagement or inappropriate handling of the social media

marketing can cause potential problem. Besides, for effective conduction of SCM, it

is needed to give responsibility to separate fully employed employees for this

purpose. Asda can create a separate division or department for the social media

marketing for making its more focused and appropriate with the current situation

because many competitors are now focusing more on this and gaining competitive

advantages. So, Asda can recruit a social media marketing manager for gaining more

specialization on this sector. Besides, prompt and instance service or feedback must

be insured to capture customers’ attention which will eventually make it a customer

oriented company and will help to influence customer perception.

Researcher also found that customers are very eager to create communication among

them to take information and reviews. So, Asda can create a separate social media

sites for its customers which will mainly focus on its loyal and most preferred

62

customers to be in a group. Asda can name it as “Asda family” where the customers

of the Asda can communicate with each other and can give feedback to the Asda

regarding different issues, which will create new dimension towards its business and

also attract the customers.

Asda needs to give more emphasis on the quality of the social media sites content

because if it is not updated or up-to-mark certainly will demoralize customers and will

create negative image which eventually will negatively influence customers’

purchases. Besides, it must regularly update its info and page content with new

changes for making its more effective and rich in nature. On the other, it must keep

eyes on handling the social media sites because any fault and fake promise; news can

damage the company image severely. It is found in the research that the more

presence in social networking sites is good but maintaining quality is the main way to

create enthusiasm and keep interest of the customers.

The complaints and nay kind of negative comments in the social media sites must be

handled properly for proper brand of the organisation because if customers see any

bad comment automatically he or she will perceive a negative image about the

company. So, Asda needs to be careful about these issues for better management of

brand image in digital marketing. Besides, prompt and instance measure must be

taken to handle the complaints of the customers. Research revealsCustomer handling

and complaints management good huge priority, so better idea and way is needed to

formulate for better management of brand image in digital marketing.

Separate strategy, game plan and goals must be designed for each social media entity

for making the strategy for customized and appropriate with the surrounding situation

because different social media may demands different situation, so for being more

specific and appropriate it must for the organisation to design separate strategy for

separate site.

Customer service strategy and action plan must be designed to define the code of

conduct for each of the social media sites. Besides, Asda must go above and beyond

to satisfy the customers. Proper evaluation of performance must be done for better

understanding of the situation. Asda needs to focus on giving customers a chance to

express their feeling which will help to generate new ideas from there.

63

5.3 Limitation and future research scope:This research is an academic research and this is not for any business purpose, so the

researcher has faced the shortage of resources and some knowledge lacking. This research

covered different aspects of the social media marketing on customer purchase intent. In

future, researcher can conduct research based on how each of the social media sites is eligible

and important to influence the customers purchase intent. Besides, more research can be

conducted on how the social media marketing should be designed and what should be content

of the social media marketing. The research needs to be conduct regarding the current topic in

future for understanding what the current scenario is. In future researcher can conduct

research how can social media marketing can target the customers and can segment the

market to design its contents and influence the customer purchase intent.

64

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6 Appendices

Appendix A

Survey Form

“An Investigation of the impact of Social media marketing on customer purchase intent in retail industry of UK: A case study of Asda”

Dear participant,

I am conducting a survey for completing the research paper related to the social media advertisement for finding the impact of it on the consumer buying behaviour especially focusing the study on ASDA, UK. For that purposes the below mentioned information is needed to fill up. I will use that information for the academic purposes only.

Thank You for your help.

PARTICIPANT SOCIO DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE

Personal Information

Age

15-21 22-29

30-39 40 and above

Education Level

Less than high school High School

Diploma BCs.

MCS PHd.

Monthly Income

Less than 1000 1001-2000

2001-3000 3001-5000

69

Serial Number:

5001-7000 More than 7000

Nationality British (UK) Asian

African Other European

Gender Male Female

Survey Questions Representatives

Strongly Disagree

Disagree Somewhat Disagree

Neutral Somewhat Agree

Agree Strongly agree

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Survey Questionnaire

Code Questions Strongly

Disagree

Disagree

Somewhat

Disagree

Neutral Somewhat Agree

Agree

Strongly

agree

Section One: Facebook

F1 Facebook is an important tool of social media marketing

F2 Facebook content of Asda is rich and appropriate for the current situation

F3 Facebook of Asdahas influenced my purchase intent positively

GPSection Two: Google Plus

70

GP1 Google Plus of Asda is effective to influence customers

GP2 I think the content of Google plus is appropriate to meet customers query

GP3 Google plus of Asda is efficient enough to influence customer purchase intent.

Section Three: Twitter

TW1 Twitter is becoming a great tool of social media marketing now-a-days

TW2 I personally visited the Twitter of Asda and it is satisfactory

TW3 Twitter is helping Asda to influencing customers positively

Section Four: LinkedIn

LI1 LinkedIn has linked Asda with different potential customers

LI2 It effective tool of social media marketing

LI3 It effective to influence customer purchase behaviour

Section Five: YouTube

YT1 YouTube is influecng the customers through it content

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YT2 I believe YouTube can help Asda to be more competitive in social media marketing

YT3 It really efficient tool to influence customer purchase

Section Six: Instagram

IT1 Instagram content of Asda is satisfactory and appropriate to meet customers’ demands and query

IT2 Asda is using it to influence customer purchase behaviour

IT3 Asda has regularly update its content to make it more dynamic

Section Seven: Customer Purchase Intent (CPI)

CPI1 Customer purchase intent of Asda’s customer are positive enough

CPI2 Social media marketing is really influencing customer purchase intent

CPI3 Customer purchase intent can be increase if the customers’ demand of knowledge and information is fulfilled fully which can be done by the social media marketing.

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Other Questions

1. Which one is the most attractive and influencing social media?

a) Facebookb) Twitterc) Google Plusd) LinkedIn

2. Through which social media you are getting influenced mostly for purchasing the products of

ASDA?

a) Facebookb) Google Plusc) Twitterd) LinkedIn

3. Facebook’s advertisement policy is less disturbing than other social media?

a) Yesb) No

4. Twitter has more customized features for its advertising policies than Facebook?

a) Strongly Agree b) Agreec) Somewhat Agreed) Neither Agree nor Disagreee) Somewhat Disagreef) Disagreeg) Strongly Disagree

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Appendix B

CONSENT FORM

Please give tick mark to the () relevant boxes

1. I confirm, the information sheet is clear to me

2. I am aware of my participation

3. I provide permission to participate

4. I give my consent to remain confidential members at the focus group

5. I am glad to be approached

Signature:

Date:

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The impact of social media marketing on customer purchase intent

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