Consumer Behavior: Impact of Social Media and Internet

This report provides a comprehensive overview of consumer behavior, emphasizing the significant influence of social media and internet sources on consumer buying patterns. It delves into the role of consumers in the economy, exploring how various factors impact pre-purchase and post-purchase behaviors. The report highlights the importance of online consumer movements and the evolving role of consumers in the market. It examines the impact of social media channels, such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter, on consumer decision-making, including brand awareness, product information, and online shopping. Furthermore, the report addresses the challenges consumers face in the digital landscape, such as misinformation, and the benefits of e-commerce in terms of awareness, price comparison, and online shopping experiences. It also covers the rights of consumers and the importance of companies providing adequate information to consumers to foster long-term success.

Running head: Consumer behaviour
Consumer behaviour

Consumer behaviour
The paper presents a brief overview of the consumer behavior. It explains that how social
media channels and internet sources influence the buying behavior of the consumers. Consumers
play a vital and significant role in the economy. It explains that how various factors affect the
pre-purchase and post-purchase behavior of the consumer. It explains the significance of online
consumer movement. It explains that how the consumer is becoming the leader of the market.
A consumer is a person who buys various products and services for personal use; they do
not buy the products for resale and manufacture purpose. Therefore, consumer influences the
marketing activities from various ways. A consumer is also considered the digital native. Further,
consumer movement is an effort to promote and encourage consumer protection through an
organized and formulated social movement. It advocates and promotes rights of the consumers.
In other words, consumerism is a formulated and organized movement of government and
citizens to impose and enforce the powers and rights of buyers in relation to the sellers. There is
various factors influence the buying behavior of the consumers. These factors include the
situational factors, social factors, and personal factors (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2011). Therefore,
the firm should focus and analyze these factors to provide satisfaction to the consumers.
The online consumer movement protects the rights of the consumers and it maintains
unity and collaboration among consumers. It helps to protect unfair trade practices and
malpractices in order to gain revenue and profit in near future. The consumer movement includes
the democratic and voluntary movement of the consumers. It is a movement of consumers, for
the consumers and by the consumers (Zsóka, Szerényi, Széchy & Kocsis, 2013).
Social media is a good source to gain survival and profitability of the company. Social
media, internet, and online sources play a vital role to increase the sales of the products in the
market. The online social media channels create a new place of communication and interaction
among the people. Individuals can share their knowledge, experience, and opinions with one
other due to the various social media channels (Rucker, Galinsky & Dubois, 2012). These social
media channels have an impact on the consumer behavior in terms of purchasing and
communication. Further, consumer movement plays a vital role in trade and commerce. The
consumer movement provides help to the economy. It provides satisfaction to the consumers.
After various researches, it has been analyzed that a consumer is the most important sightseer on
the people premises. Thus, the companies should provide protection to the consumers. The
2

Consumer behaviour
various rights have provided to the consumers such as the right to safety, right to choose the
products and services, right to be informed, and right to be heard. The consumer movement in
India is very slow (Reed, Forehand, Puntoni & Warlop, 2012).
The consumer decision-making includes a continuous flow of an interaction and
communication between behavioral actions and environmental factors. The pre-purchase and
post-purchase decision-making process is very complex for the consumers. When a consumer
realizes and understands the needs, requirements, expectations then he finds the information
related to products and services. Thus, he collects the information about the products and
services such as products variations, product alternatives, product brands and product quality. It
is called pre-purchase decision-making process. The consumer can collect information and facts
about a product and services that is depending on his age, education, risk, gender, product price
and acceptance. The search activities include the specific, incidental and ongoing search
activities (Hoyer & Stokburger-Sauer, 2012).
Further, all the experiences, information and activities that follow purchase are included
and integrated into the post-purchase behavior. Generally, after making a purchase, the post-
purchase consumer's conflicts and disputes are raised in the market. Sometimes, they take wrong
decisions related to products and services. The conflicts and disputes occur due to a lot of
alternatives available in the market. Sometimes, the marketers need to ensure the consumer
choices and requirements. The sellers mention important attributes, features, and benefits of the
product to address and resolve the concerns of the consumers. The post-purchase dissonance and
conflict affect the level of satisfaction adversely (Michaelidou, Siamagka & Christodoulides,
2011). Further, post-purchase is the stage of the consumer decision process where a consumer
will take further action and decision based on their dissatisfaction and satisfaction level. The
level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the consumers directly related to the various
relationships between pre-purchase or initial expectations of the product and the post-purchase of
the products. After the purchase, the consumers check and evaluate the quality and quantity of
the products. If the consumer feels that product performance and quality is less than their
expectations then consumer feel dissatisfied. If the products are according to the expectations
and requirements of the consumers then it will provide satisfaction to the consumers. The
Conflicts and dissonance arise due to dissatisfaction behavior of consumers. In today’s era,
3

Consumer behaviour
various social media channels are popular such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube, and
Twitter. The social media is an important source that provides various kinds of information to
the consumers (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins &Wiertz, 2013). The social media channels
help to customers to take various decisions related to purchase and post purchase of the products.
These channels provide various information about the brand of the company. Social media plays
an integral role to improve brand awareness and it also helps to provide customized product to
customers in the market (Couldry, 2012). The potential consumers can know about any café and
restaurants before visiting there through various social media channels such as facebook and
Google. These channels help to provide the right information about the online products and
services. People have chances to know any special discounts and festivals offers on the products
and services with the help of these channels. The social media networks also help to create
consumer movement in the marketplace. It promotes and encourages rights of the consumers
(Hutter, Hautz, Dennhardt & Füller, 2013).
After various researches, it has been analyzed that social media channels enjoy higher
reliability and loyalty from their consumers in the market. It provides various opportunities to
consumers to gain various profits in the market (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins &Wiertz,
2013. People can share their knowledge, experience, and information with the help of social
media channels. Through social media, the company can make coordination and cooperation
with its audience in the market. By using the social media channels, consumers are able to search
new information related to their products and they are also able to give order for the chose
products and services. The consumers can also do online supping through social media channels
and internet (Labrecque, 2014).
But the consumers need to aware about the social media channels. E-commerce creates
the awareness among the consumers related to various products and services. E-commerce
provides chances to consumers to know about the defective products and services in the market.
The consumers are able to compare the various prices of the products and services with the help
of social media channels. Further, E-commerce creates awareness among the consumers in terms
of prices and quality of the products (Kwok &Yu, 2013).
The companies also provide various schemes to make more aware to the consumers in the
market. E-commerce also increases the knowledge and experience related to online shopping and
4

Consumer behaviour
other online products. Through social media, the consumes can make payment through debit
card, and credit card. The social media channels are increasing the awareness of the consumers
across the world. The social media is an important source to reach its massive audience in the
world (Tsimonis &Dimitriadis, 2014).
But now a day’s various challenges are faced by the consumers related to social media
channels. Sometimes, these channels are not able to provide the right information about the
products and services. It does not increase the brand awareness in the market thus; various
challenges are faced by the consumers in the market. The uses of social media are increasing day
by day. These channels create real business values and effective relationship with customers.
Various benefits can be taken by the company and consumers as well with the help of social
media channels (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins &Wiertz, 2013).
On the above discussion, it has been analyzed that social media and internet help to
consumers to make an effective decision in regards to pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase
behaviors. The companies should protect the rights of consumers and it must provide adequate
and appropriate information to consumers related to online products and services. Further, online
consumer movement also plays a vital role in the market. The companies should focus on the
interests, expectations, and requirements of the consumers to attract more consumers in the
market. In this way, the companies can gain long-term success and growth in the market. E-
commerce and companies should conduct some awareness programs and campaigns to increase
the awareness of the consumers. Now it is assumed that social media and internet sources play an
integral role in today’s world.
5

Consumer behaviour
References
Couldry, N., 2012. Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity.
De Mooij, M. and Hofstede, G., 2011. Cross-cultural consumer behavior: A review of research
findings. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 23(3-4), pp.181-192.
Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y. and Wiertz, C., 2013. Managing brands in the
social media environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), pp.242-256.
Hoyer, W.D. and Stokburger-Sauer, N.E., 2012. The role of aesthetic taste in consumer
behavior. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(1), pp.167-180.
Hutter, K., Hautz, J., Dennhardt, S. and Füller, J., 2013. The impact of user interactions in social
media on brand awareness and purchase intention: the case of MINI on Facebook. Journal of
Product & Brand Management, 22(5/6), pp.342-351.
Kwok, L. and Yu, B., 2013. Spreading social media messages on Facebook: An analysis of
restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(1), pp.84-
94.
Labrecque, L.I., 2014. Fostering consumer–brand relationships in social media environments:
The role of parasocial interaction. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 28(2), pp.134-148.
Michaelidou, N., Siamagka, N.T. and Christodoulides, G., 2011. Usage, barriers and
measurement of social media marketing: An exploratory investigation of small and medium B2B
brands. Industrial marketing management, 40(7), pp.1153-1159.
Reed, A., Forehand, M.R., Puntoni, S. and Warlop, L., 2012. Identity-based consumer
behavior. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 29(4), pp.310-321.
6

Consumer behaviour
Rucker, D.D., Galinsky, A.D. and Dubois, D., 2012. Power and consumer behavior: How power
shapes who and what consumers value. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), pp.352-368.
Tsimonis, G. and Dimitriadis, S., 2014. Brand strategies in social media. Marketing Intelligence
& Planning, 32(3), pp.328-344.
Zsóka, Á., Szerényi, Z.M., Széchy, A. and Kocsis, T., 2013. Greening due to environmental
education? Environmental knowledge, attitudes, consumer behavior and everyday pro-
environmental activities of Hungarian high school and university students. Journal of Cleaner
Production, 48, pp.126-138.
7