Brand Reviews on Social Networks Has Influence on Purchase Intension of the Customers

BP 6993 Individual Research Project

Research Proposal

"Brand reviews on Social Networks has influence on the Purchase Intension of the customers"

Submitted By

Ms. Riddhi Shah

ID NO. 542-9245

Submitted To:

Dr. Vorapot Ruckthum

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Topic of Interest 4

Rationale of Study 5

Research Objectives 5

Purpose of the study 6

Methodology 6

Research Design and Data Analysis 6

Limitation 7

Scope of Research 7

Theoretical Framework 7

Conceptual Framework 13

Hypotheses 14

Questionnaire 15

Title: Brand reviews on Social Networks has influence on Purchase Intension of the customers

Introduction

In order to carry out this research basically 15 articles have been reviewed to get help for the research. To develop the conceptual framework for this research the support of six research model have been taken.

Purchase intention means consumer will buy a product once again after she or he evaluates a product and finds out that the product worth buying. While consumers select one particular product, the final decision on accepting a product to buy or rejecting it depends on consumers' intention. Also, a large number of external factors have been recognized, which can affect Purchase Intention (Keller, 2001). These days purchase intention is getting more complicated and it is more significant for the consumers compare to past. Consumers rely on many sources while looking for the information before making purchase.

In recent years use of Social networks like Facebook, Twitter has increased tremendously. These social networks are becoming popular and important platforms in terms of influencing the consumers purchase decision. Using theses platforms customers can easily post their reviews and comment about the product of companies.

Consumers who had good or bad experience with the product tend to share their experience by giving review about the product and features on the social networking sites. This has the influencing effect on the other readers who have intention to buy the product as the consumers tend to trust peer consumers more than they trust e-marketing (Lee,M. and S.Youn, 2009). Those online reviews can be called as electronic Word-Of-Mouth (e-WOM).

Consumers usually tend to search for the information regarding the product they interested to buy before they actually go to the store and make the purchase. They first read the features of the products but with that they also tend to read the reviews given by the user and this seems to have the great impact on their purchase intention.

Topic of Interest

In today's fast developing world the internet is the most important tool for the businesses to reach their target customers. With the increasing use of technology new trends like Social Networks also have taken place. People are more relying on the Social network to communicate with friends and family and share the personal experience with the world. People rely on the Social networks so much starting from the socializing to sharing experience to advertising their business. Due the heavy use of the Social Networks the new marketing trend has started, that is companies are using the Social Network Platforms to reach their target consumers also they collect the information whether the customer are satisfied or not with the product through these platforms. Even the people are more and more using the social networks sites and share their personal experience related to the products. Before making the purchase the consumers tends to look for the information on the internet and they heavily rely on the information provided by the other consumers/users of the products. The main purpose to carry out this research is to find out whether in reality the reviews given by the other consumer have the impact on the purchase intention of the other consumers who actually intent to buy the product.

Rationale of Study

In the recent years the Social Networks has grown from the niche market to the mass market. There are millions of users for the social networking sites starting from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and many more. People share their experience; give their opinions and suggestion about the places, products which has the influencing affect to other who are seeking for the information. By doing this study would like to know that people use the social networks only for the entertainment, enjoyment or they also search information when it comes to making the buying decision. When consumers look for the information it actually effect the people's perception, purchase intention, brand loyalty towards the product or not. Another reason to carry out this research is to find out that how strong effect does the brand review on social network have on the consumers purchase intentions

Research Objectives

The main objective of the research is to find out how the brand reviews on the social networking site influences the consumer's purchase intention. The objectives of the research are as follow.

 To analyze the relationship between brand review on social network sites/e-WOM and buyers purchase intention

 To evaluate the relationship between the trust on online information and purchase intention

 To find out the relationship between corporate image and trust on information

 To analyze the relationship between the message source and the purchase intention

 To evaluate the relationship between observation learning and the purchase intention

Purpose