1. Introduction
Today, media is no longer restricted to networking and having conversations; it is influencing the world of business. Social factors have impacted consumer’s purchase habits, and the prevalence of smartphones and various online social networking sites has taken word-of-mouth to greater heights.
Today, due to technological developments, consumers globally are carrying the posting and purchasing power in their pockets. For motivation, they do not have to rely on stores or marketers, and their social feeds themselves are sufficient. When in doubt, the consumers need not call their friends for suggestions but just must post it on their social networks and receive responses from not only their known contacts but sometimes even from total strangers too. This is a very common phenomenon, especially among millennials, and made possible because of technology.
Different research studies in the past have uncovered the impact that social media has on consumer behavior:
According to Forbes study that was conducted to find out how consumers involved themselves with different organizations and businesses, it was found that 81% admitted to being impacted by the recommendations from family and friends in their buying decisions, whereas 78% admitted that posts done on social media by the companies influenced their buying decisions (1). It has been predicted that, in the future for decades, social media’s impact will be the highest on shopping behavior (2).
According to the study conducted by Gartner (3), 84% of millennials admitted to posts by even strangers have had influence on their buying.
A total of 52% of the total purchases both online and offline were influenced by Facebook in 2015. (4). The likelihood of purchase based on the referrals in the social media posts was 71%. (5). A total of 64% of the overall social revenue generated and half of the social referrals were due to the social networking platform Facebook (6). According to the Sprout Social Index 2022 report, 65% of the marketers surveyed and 71% of consumers intended to use Facebook in the coming year (7).
India had 749 million Internet users nationwide in the year 2020, and by the year 2021, there were 830 million. By 2025, there are projected to be 1,134.04 million Internet users, indicating that social media will likely experience very rapid development due to the rapid technological developments. Given that there are more people using the Internet than ever before and that everyone has access to large amount of information online, buying behavior of consumers has evolved to be more deliberate and informed.
Consumer buying decision process is a series of stages/steps through which a consumer goes before making a purchase. It starts with recognition of the need followed by information search and evaluation of alternatives and Purchase. The consumer’s post-purchase behavior will be determined by his/her experience with the purchase. When the purchase meets the expectations of the consumer, he/she is satisfied. If the performance of the product is below the expectations, then the consumer is dissatisfied, and when the performance exceeds the expectations, the consumer is delighted.
Based on the report entitled ‘Trend-setting millennials: Redefining the consumer story’ by Deloitte, millennials who are also called Gen Y, comprise 47% of the working-age population and are the main earners in India. Not only globally but in India too, the millennials are tech savvy being digitally connected and having a higher amount of disposable earnings are able to steer rapid growth and development with their consumption (8).
Anil Talreja, partner at Deloitte India, expressed that India has the largest population in terms of millennials who are almost half of the working age group segment in India. Though there is Gen Z who are born in the 21st century, they have a different set of tastes and preferences. It is Gen Y that is dominating the market today. There are 7.4 billion millennials globally comprising 27% of the population, whereas it is 440 million in India comprising 34% of the Indian Population (9).
There are various studies conducted in the past that focused on the influence of social media on the youth and teens, but there are very few papers that focus on the Internet usage patterns of millennials. Hence, this paper focuses on the influence of social media on the purchase behavior of the millennials with a special reference to Bangalore City.
2. Research elaborations
2.1. Review of literature
Dwivedi et al. (10) conducted a research entitled “Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions” and have collated insights from many professionals on matters pertaining to marketing through digital and social media. The specialists have offered their comprehensive view on many general characteristics relating to social media and the opportunities to companies in the form of lesser costs, enhanced brand responsiveness and higher sales and problems posed by it in terms of negative word of mouth, intrusiveness of the medium, and sometimes irritating online brand presence.
Shawky et al. (11) in their study entitled “Using social media to create engagement: a social marketing review” analyzed the social marketing programmes that were conducted worldwide between 2005 and 2017 and tried to bring out the potential of social media through its two-way conversations in engaging with the customers and communities. It was found that Facebook and other such social media platforms have been used merely to connect and transfer information or knowledge among the target audiences. Social platforms were just replacing the traditional media and not utilizing the potential of the media as a tool to support the audiences’ ability to revisit communications and become advocates of the programmes’ activities.
Abuhashesh (2014) in his study entitled “Integration of Social Media in Businesses” emphasized the significance of integrating social media with core marketing and communication functions of the business. This paper has analyzed the integration of social media with other marketing and customer service functions. It also brought out the merits and limitations of this. It has also recommended the approach that needs to be adopted by businesses to derive sustainable strategic growth in the changing global environment.
Whiting and Williams (2013) in their study entitled “Why people use social media: a uses and gratifications approach” studied the application of theory of uses and gratification to social media and have come out with ten benefits of social media using this theory.
Jith et al. (2022) performed a study to discover the impact of technological changes like ICT on the everyday routine of consumers especially the influence of E word of mouth (eWOM) on buying decisions. This study revealed that, in Kerala’s upcoming digital scenario, eWOM through social media had a major influence on purchasing behavior in this technological age. This study also identified that social media is having an impact on information search and purchase decisions that are influenced by reviews and recommendations.
Sudha and Sathya (2020) found in their study entitled “The Impact of Social Media on Buying Behavior of Consumers” a good scope for online shopping currently due to the increase in internet usage. Due to convenience, customers prefer purchasing on social media, but they have some insecurities and are not aware of websites due to less promotion of the sites. Thus, they conclude that improving these constraints on e-commerce platforms can make huge revenue.
Ansari et al. (13), in their study, examined how the purchase decision of consumers is impacted by two variables like brand awareness and social media content. The study found that social media content is having a positive and significant impact, whereas the relationship with brand awareness is weak on the purchase decisions.
Voramontri and Klieb (14) in their study entitled “Impact of Social Media on Consumer Behavior” examined how social media is affecting the process that consumers adopt while taking decision in the case of complex purchases which are expensive and infrequent and have high risk, involvement and brand difference. The study revealed that customer satisfaction did not improve because of social media and still many consumers preferred to purchase offline from brick-and-mortar outlets.
Yogesh and Yesha (15) in his study entitled “Effect of Social Media on Purchase Decision” analyzed the relationship between personal characteristics of social media and the effect it has on consumers’ purchase decisions. He concluded that consumers believe in reviews on social media from strangers and friends who have an experience using the product or service are trusted equally. Thus, marketers can use social media to improve awareness and engagement goals and suggest that the firm could use discounts or offers to consumers via social media.
Sema (16) in her study entitled “Does Social Media Affect Consumer Decision” suggested that social media is the easiest way to reach a large audience at once. This benefits a person’s convenience to achieve whatever they want. People use the information shared by their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media sites to do the same.
Arora et al. (17) in their study entitled “Impact of social media advertising on millennials buying behavior” have come up with an exhibit that shows the effect of different ad content factors on Indian millennials’ attitude toward advertising on social media. The findings suggested that there was a major association between these two variables in the context of Indian Millennials.
Duffett (2016) in his study entitled “Influence of Social Media Marketing Communications on Young Consumers Attitude” found that those teens who frequently indulged in updating their profiles on social media and found to be using social media over a long time have shown favorable attitudinal response to the marketing programs on social media.
Pate and Adams (18) conducted a study on millennials to determine if they were influenced by social networking sites (SNS) in their purchase behavior. The study was carried out to find out if the millennial generation was influenced by their contacts, followers or celebrities and to know if ads on SNS had any motivational impact. The results showed that millennials who are tech savvy were at ease with the digital formats and had more buying power in comparison to other age groups.
2.2. Objectives
The main objective of this study is:
1. to explore the effect of social media on purchase behavior stages of the millennials.
2. to identify the most influencing social networking site among the millennials.
3. to learn the purpose of social media among millennials.
2.3. Research questions
This empirical research aims to uncover answers to the following questions:
1. Why do millennials use social media?
2. Among the millennials which social networking site is used most?
3. Does social media exert any effect on the purchase decision process of millennials?
2.4. Research methodology
This is an empirical study carried out through an online survey. Secondary data were collected through a literature review that enabled the identification of the research gaps, and based on this, primary data were gathered through a standard structured questionnaire that was directed to the respondents via Google Form. Non-probability sampling technique of convenience sampling was adopted to collect the data from the respondents. The questionnaire consisted of various types of closed-ended questions and adopted a Likert scale to study the purchase behavior of the respondents. As the population size is large, a sample size of 500 was selected and this form was shared with 500 students who represented the millennials. However, only 320 responses were received, and SPSS version 26 has been used for data analysis. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Correlation and regression analysis was carried out to identify the relationship among the stages of purchase behavior. The reliability test on SPSS for the entire set of Likert scales was done through Cronbach’s alpha.
3. Results and analysis
From Table 1, we can see social media is being used by the millennials for information sharing and networking rather than shopping.
Table 1. General outline of the respondents.
Social media reviews impact the most as the source of information for purchase decision followed by friends and family, which is seen in Table 2.
Table 2. Preferred source of information for purchase decision.
From Table 3, it can be identified that brand awareness followed by information from Internet, friends and family and previous experience of using the product seem to influence the decision to make a purchase.
Table 3. Source that influences the decision to purchase a product.
Table 4 shows that among the social media platforms, Instagram is the prevalent social networking platform among the millennials followed by Facebook and WhatsApp.
Table 4. Social media platform that has a higher influence on the millennials’ purchase behavior.
It is seen in Table 5 that millennials seem to be influenced by social media ads to buy the product.
Table 5. Frequency of purchase because of social media ads.
3.1. Millennials’ buying behavior
Likert scale with 11 statements has been used to study the purchase behavior. Table 6 presents the results of the reliability test on SPSS for the entire set of Likert scale used in the questionnaire which shows a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.932 which is way above the standard value of 0.7, and hence it shows that the scale used for collecting the data is reliable.
Table 6. Reliability.
3.2. Reliability analysis for the entire measurement scale
3.2.1. Descriptive statistics
Table 7 presents the reliability, mean and standard deviation of the instrument scale, used in the research.
Table 7. Descriptive statistics.
Stage 1: Need Identification.
The first stage in the purchase process is the identification of the need. Three statements measured whether social media helped millennials in this stage of the buying process.
Correlation
From Table 8, there is a high correlation between the idea to purchase from social media and getting influenced to make the purchase (0.717, p = 0.01) and a moderate correlation between idea to purchase from social media and influence of social media in triggering the purchase (0.468, p = 0.01). The correlation between influence of social media in triggering the purchase and getting influenced to make the purchase is moderate (0.525, p = 0.01).
Table 8. Need recognition.
Stage 2: Search for Information.
Three statements measured whether social media helped millennials in this stage of the buying process.
Correlation
It is observed from Table 9 that a high correlation exists between using social media to search for information before buying and searching social media for information is easier than mass media (0.670, p = 0.01) and a low correlation between using social media to search for information before buying and information on social media is more trustworthy than mass media (0.370, p = 0.01). The correlation between searching social media for information is easier than mass media and information on social media is more trustworthy than mass media is moderate (0.618, p = 0.01).
Table 9. Information search.
Stage 3: Evaluation of Purchase Alternatives.
Three statements measured whether social media helped millennials in this stage of the buying process.
Correlation
A high correlation is found in Table 10 between my purchase decision is influenced by reviews, comments and posts on social media and ease of purchase decision-making due to social media (0.778, p = 0.01) and a moderate correlation between my purchase decision is influenced by reviews, comments and posts on social media affects my purchase decision and social media influencers’ recommendations play a major role in my purchase decision (0.479, p = 0.01). The correlation between social media influencers’ recommendations plays a major role in my purchase decision and the ease of purchase decision-making due to social media is moderate (0.503, p = 0.01).
Table 10. Evaluation of purchase alternatives.
Stage 4: Purchase.
Regression
As seen in Table 10, there is a moderate correlation between shopping more online (0.778, p = 0.01) and it is easier to search for information about a product or service on social media compared to mass media (0.588, p = 0.01). As seen in Table 11, there is a high correlation where R = 0.588 shows that there is 58.8% of relationship between shopping more online and it is easier to search for information about a product or service on social media compared to Mass Media. In Table 12, the value of R2 is 0.346, which shows 34.6% variance between the same two variables.
Table 11. Purchase correlation.
Table 12. Regression model.
The regression equation is expressed as follows:
Y = 1.268 + 0.504X
The regression equation is Y = a + bX where Y is the dependent variable-Currently, I am shopping more online and a = 1.268 and b = 0.504 as shown in Table 13 and X is the independent variable-It is easier to search for information about a product or service on social media compared to mass media.
Table 13. Regression coefficients.
From this, we can infer that the more the millennials search for information on the Internet, the more they will shop online. They will shop 50.4% more than the searching information on the Internet.
4. Conclusion
We can conclude that millennials are influenced by the social media in their shopping behavior. The research objective of studying the effect of social media on different stages of the millennials has found that at each of the stages-need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives and purchase, social media is playing a lot of influence.
Instagram is found to be the most accepted social networking platform among millennials followed by Facebook and WhatsApp. The purchase behavior of millennials is seen to be influenced by social media ads.
Millennials are found to use social media mostly for information sharing and networking but also get impacted by the reviews and posts on social media during the purchase.
This study will help marketers in targeting millennials through social media. It gives them insights into the purpose of usage of social media by millennials and the most popular social media site among millennials. Brand marketers can generate positive reviews on social media for them and through social listening they may diminish the impact of negative reviews.
This study has taken into consideration only the behavior of millennials. Future research can also consider other cohorts. Also, there is potential to do further research in this area taking a specific product category into consideration in place of this general study. This will help the company to target their audiences through social media platforms effectively.
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