Impact of Social Media Advertising on Consumer Buying Behavior: With Special Reference to Fast Fashion Industry

Abstract

Social media advertising has become the cornerstone of the most effective fashion brands’ marketing strategy in recent years. Since the boom of social media, most fashion retailers have started to recognize the benefits of creating value for their brands using social media platforms. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social media advertising on consumer buying behaviour towards fast fashion. Along with the study, it examines the consumer buying behaviour aligned with the consumer decision-making process. It measures the overall impact of social media advertising on the consumer decision-making process in the fashion industry. This study adopts a descriptive quantitative research design and data was collected through a self-administrated questionnaire. The population of this study is active social media users in Western province and a sample of 300 consumers was selected using the convenience sampling method. The hypotheses were tested using Correlation and Regression analysis since the purpose of the study is to measure the impact of each independent variable on the chosen dependent variable. The Results of the present study revealed that social media advertising positively influences on consumer buying behaviour in the fast fashion industry. Three independent variables out of four, namely entertainment, familiarity and social imaging have highly influenced consumer behaviour and there is no statistically significant influence from the remaining variable, advertising expenditure. The present study provides valuable implications for the fast fashion industry, providing marketers with the opportunity to use the findings for identifying their consumers’ real buying behaviour in a digital environment and to make the decisions accordingly.