Impact of Social Media on Consumer Buying Behavior: A Case Study of Woolworths Limited, Australia

This research investigates the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior in the case of Woolworths Limited, Australia. The aim is to analyze the conceptual understanding of social media and consumer buying behavior, evaluate the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior, and recommend social media strategies to enhance consumer buying behavior towards products and services.

“Impact of social media on consumer buying
behavior in the case of Woolworths Limited,
Australia”
Student Name
Student Number

Industry Partner
 Woolworths is a renowned superstore in the
region of Australia.
 It has over 995 stores in across the country of
Australia.
 It has recruited more than 115,000 employees in
their retail stores and distribution in order to offer
the prompt and quality services to their
consumers.
 It also purchases the raw material through
producers along with farmers.
 It also makes sure to deliver the finest services
to consumers (Woolworths group, 2018).

Research Problem
 The key issue of Woolworths is to decline the retention
rate of consumers and gaining the turnover of the
consumer because of a lack of effective marketing
strategies.
 This investigation is practiced to assess the “Impact of
social media on consumer buying behavior in the case of
Woolworths Limited, Australia” (Woolworth’s group, 2018).
 In an organization of Woolworths limited, social media is
implemented in marketing strategy as it can be significant
to obtain the immediate feedback and reviews from
customers.
 This marketing strategy is also significant to persuade the
purchasing behavior of consumers with regards to
products and services (Severi, et. al., 2014).

Research Aim
 The key aim of this research is to address the “Impact of social
media on consumer buying behavior: A case study of
Woolworths Limited, Australia”.
 Following objectives will be used to attain the key aim of
investigation:
 RO1: To analyze the conceptual understanding regarding social
media and consumer buying behavior: A case study of
Woolworths Limited, Australia
 RO2: To evaluate the impact of social media on consumer
buying behavior: A case study of Woolworths Limited, Australia
 RO3: To recommend the social media strategy to enhance the
consumer buying behavior towards the products and services:
A case study of Woolworths Limited, Australia

Literature review
 Conceptual understanding regarding
social media and consumer buying
behavior: A case study of Woolworths
Limited, Australia
 According to Solomon et al. (2014), social
media marketing is defined as the process of
advertising the products with the help of social
media platforms and digital communication
techniques.
 AIDA model is used by different dynamic
business companies in order to develop the
brand and create awareness regarding
products among an individual.

Cont…
 Impact of social media on consumer
buying behavior: A case study of
Woolworths Limited, Australia
 According to Stephen (2016), the social media
generates the awareness with regards to
products and services between customers as
it may help to make their own judgment.
 Zhang and Benyoucef (2016) illustrated that
social media is an effective tool that may
increase the attractiveness of existing
globalization time.

Cont…
 Social media strategy to enhance the
consumer buying behavior towards the
products and services: A case study of
Woolworths Limited, Australia
 Kim and Johnson (2016) stated that customers
are spending a longer period on surfing the
social media sites and makes a judgment with
respect to buying the products.
 According to Kim and Johnson (2016),
recognized people can generate five times
more faith as compared to brand marketing.

Research Questions
 RQ1: What is the conceptual understanding
regarding social media and consumer buying
behaviour in the case of Woolworths Limited,
Australia?
 RQ2: How social media has an impact on
consumer buying behaviour in case of
Woolworths Limited, Australia?
 RQ3: Which social media strategy can improve
the consumer buying behaviour towards the
products and services in the case of
Woolworths Limited, Australia?

Research Design
Area of Work/Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Consideration of research issue
Meeting and Feedbacks via Supervisors
Understanding on background
Assessment of literature review
Data gathering via primary data
Assessment of data and report writing
Editing and Proof-Reading
Final Submission of report

Research Design
 With the intention of this research, a mixed
research design would be selected by an
investigator to complete the investigation in a
particular time framework.
 This research design would be selected as it
contains the attributes of both quantitative
and qualitative designing of research (Ioanăs,
and Stoica, 2014).

Research Design
 Simple random sampling method will allow the
researcher to select research participants in
randomly basis and conduct the particular
research.
 A researcher will select 50 consumers for the
survey through questionnaire and 5 managers
for conducting the interview method.

Research Design: Research Tool(s)
 For this research, both primary and secondary data
collection method will be used to gather the
information regarding research concern.
 Primary data would be gathered via using different
sources such as interview and survey through a
questionnaire.
 Along with this, secondary data would be collected
through several sources like academic publication,
journal articles, textbooks, online articles, and offline
articles.
 These data collection methods would be beneficial to
gather the reliable and valid data (Khare, 2015).

Ethical considerations
 The researcher will use the Data Protection Act 1988 for
securing the information of the research participants and
main the relationship with them.
 The researcher will also use the ethical norms at the time of
conducting their research and eliminating possibilities of
ethical issues.
 In addition, the researcher will consider the guidelines of
research participants to conduct the research in an ethical
way.
 The researcher will also not demonstrate the manipulative
information in a research report to conduct a study in an
ethical way.
 For involving the managers in research, an investigator will
inform regarding the purpose of the investigation to the
manager prior to pooling the data (Jung, et. al., 2016).

Reference list
 Ioanăs, E. and Stoica, I., 2014. Social media and its impact on consumers behavior.
International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, 4(2), pp.295-303.
 Jung, J., Shim, S.W., Jin, H.S. and Khang, H., 2016. Factors affecting attitudes and
behavioral intention towards social networking advertising: a case of Facebook users in
South Korea. International Journal of Advertising, 35(2), pp.248-265.
 Khare, A., 2015. Antecedents to green buying behavior: a study on consumers in an
emerging economy. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 33(3), pp.309-329.
 Kim, A.J. and Johnson, K.K., 2016. Power of consumers using social media: Examining
the influences of brand-related user-generated content on Facebook. Computers in
Human Behavior, 58, pp.98-108.
 Severi, E., Ling, K.C. and Nasermoadeli, A., 2014. The impacts of electronic word of
mouth on brand equity in the context of social media. International Journal of Business
and Management, 9(8), p.84.
 Solomon, M.R., Dahl, D.W., White, K., Zaichkowsky, J.L. and Polegato, R., 2014.
Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). London: Pearson.
 Stephen, A.T., 2016. The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer
behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology, 10, pp.17-21.
 Woolworths group. 2018. About us. [Online]. Available at:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us (Accessed: 9 July 2018).
 Zhang, K.Z. and Benyoucef, M., 2016. Consumer behavior in social commerce: A
literature review. Decision Support Systems, 86, pp.95-108.