The Impact of Social Media on the Pre-purchase of Plurals

Abstract

The study objects to how the pre-purchase of plurals is influenced by social media. Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube as the integrated social media platform were considered to examine social media usage and assess their impact on three dimensions of the pre-purchase stage including identification of needs, search information and evaluation of alternatives. A conceptual model for this study was developed using the previous literature. The study contains 250 plurals users as respondents; selected by adopting stratified sampling and snowball sampling. The empirical evidence was collected by surveying through a structured questionnaire. The dataset was analyzed using structure equational modeling in Smart PLS 3.0. Positive results have been found for social media influence on pre-purchase of consumer decision making process of plurals. Moreover, need recognition was highly influenced ( H1), followed by search of information ( H2) and evaluation of alternatives ( H3). Among all social media platforms, Instagram was mostly used by plurals. This research was confined to the Punjab state of India only, though other areas can take this research further. Additionally, only plurals as generation cohort were chosen; however, millennials and alpha generations can be considered for future empirical testing. This study provides ample scope to marketers in understanding the pre-purchasing behavior of plurals and their social media usage, which could be beneficial for them in developing digital marketing strategies for targeting this age group through social media.