To Ascertain the Impact of Social Media Marketing on Zara's Consumers

This report investigates the impact of social media marketing (SMM) on consumer buying behavior within the UK fashion industry, specifically focusing on Zara. The study aims to analyze how SMM influences customer purchasing decisions and brand awareness. The research includes an introduction outlining the background, aim, objectives, research questions, rationale, and significance of the study. A literature review explores existing research on SMM and consumer behavior. The methodology section details the research type (qualitative), approach (inductive), philosophy (interpretivism), data collection methods (surveys and secondary data), sampling techniques, data analysis, and ethical considerations. The report also includes a timeline for the research and a comprehensive list of references. The research employs a thematic perception test technique for data analysis and discusses research limitations and ethical considerations. The study seeks to understand the factors influencing consumer behavior in the context of SMM within the fashion industry, with the goal of providing actionable strategies for Zara to improve its SMM efforts.

RESEARCH METHODS AND
PROJECT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Background of the study..............................................................................................................1
Research Aim and Objectives......................................................................................................1
Research Questions......................................................................................................................1
Rationale......................................................................................................................................2
Significance..................................................................................................................................2
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................2
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.....................................................................................................3
Research Type..............................................................................................................................3
Research Approach .....................................................................................................................3
Research Philosophy ...................................................................................................................4
Data Collection ...........................................................................................................................4
Sampling .....................................................................................................................................4
Data analysis................................................................................................................................4
Reliability and Validity................................................................................................................4
Research limitations.....................................................................................................................4
Ethical consideration....................................................................................................................5
TIMELINE.......................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Research Topic: To ascertain the impact of Social Media Marketing on consumer buying
behaviour in context of UK fashion industry: A study on Zara
INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
In the recent era, the UK fashion industry has been on boom and its rapid growth is the
driving force for the growth and development of the country. Its pace of capturing the market
share has contributed to the employment generation as well as uplifted the standards of living.
With the evolution of technological advancements, social media marketing has played a key role
in enhancing brand awareness and the revenues of the company. Through the digital marketing
platform including the social media applications, company website, search engines etc. the
company facilitates persuading the tastes and preferences of the consumers. For the current
proposal Zara is selected who produces and distributes the apparels and accessories globally. The
proposal enlightens with the procedure of the research and the time that shall be taken to conduct
such research.
Research Aim and Objectives
Aim:- The aim of conducting this research is to analyse the impact of social media marketing on
the buying behaviour of Zara's customers.
Objectives:-
The following objectives are designed based on the aim of the research.
 To build a conceptual understanding on social media marketing and its significance.
 To study the factors impacting customer buying behaviour in the fashion industry.
 To evaluate the effect of social media marketing on the buying behaviour of Zara's
customers.
 To recommend effectual strategies to conduct SMM in order to positively persuade the
customers.
Research Questions
Q.1 What is social media marketing and its importance in a company?
Q.2 What are the factors impacting buying behaviour of customers in respect of fashion
industry?
Q.3 What is the effect that social media marketing lies on the buying behaviour of Zara's
customers?
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Rationale
The major reason of conducting this study is to analyse how social media marketing
influences the buying behaviour of customers of Zara. This has become a concern for research
nowadays as many companies have involved in SMM (Voramontri and Klieb, 2019). The intense
competition and rivalry currently together with the advancements in the technology have lead
extensive use of SMM to attract larger groups of customers. With the help of thematic perception
test technique the extent of impact of SMM on the customer buying behaviour can be known.
Significance
This study shall prove to be significant for the management of Zara, who can use the
information to further persuade the customers for making repeated purchases. It will also be
beneficial for the future researchers and scholars who conduct their research in this domain
(Stephen, 2016). Further it will be useful for all other competitors operating in the fashion
industry to use social media marketing in influencing the buying behaviour of its customers.
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Tafesse and Wien (2018) Social media marketing is way to promote
product and service of business with the help of creative strategies. It is assist organization in
meeting its targeted segment to fulfil its goals and objectives. It is beneficial to business growth
and strategies. It helps business to reach new market and customers and boost their desire
culture, mission. Many media website allow the firms and end user to get information regarding
demographic, political and geographical information. Which increases possibility for business to
reach audience easily and with low cost.
In against of this Shareef and et.al., (2019) said social media marketing make business to
rely completely on ads and difficult to measure performance as market area is very wide and
competition in market is high. There are many ways through hackers try to spoil privacy and
security policy of both company and customers. There too much delay in return on investment
while using SMM. Organization need to spend time on this as its very time-consuming and lead
to held up results. A bad feedback or comments from customer can spoil image of brand and
competitors can steel creative ideas. In large organization social media marketing may be
outsourced or handled by internal department that has been created as a separate. So trusting of
such firms that do not have idea is fully riskful.
In opinion of Tuten, (2020) customer buying behaviour gets influence with changing
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circumstances. There are many factors that affect decision-making behaviour of end users.
Psychological factors like motivation, perception, learning, attitude and believes these are major
elements that influence buying behaviour of any customers in fashion industry. In against of this
Voramontri and Klieb, (2019) stated that personal factors of customers are highly influential in
making decision. These elements are life cycle stage, occupation, self concept and economic
circumstances. In respect to this buyers are very conscious and serious. In contradicting manner
Dessart, (2017) articulated social and culture factors are those parameters that affect consumer to
change their taste and preferences.
With the views of Manzoor and et.al., (2020) social media marketing allow company to
explore platforms and how to differentiate brand from competitors. It helps to assess to
experience of customers and strategies that are essential to improve purchasing decision-making
of buyers. For this purpose company represent their brand in such a way that it can make their
brand trustworthiness and communication. Social media marketing helps company to take
feedback which give customers advantage of being able to share their thoughts and views
regarding their experience of products and services. Sundararaj and Rejeesh, (2021) said social
media marketing provides high competition in market as it influences customers. Buyers
frequently changes their likes and dislikes as they have lot of options available. Customer swap
platform on the basis promotion level of company. Active and enthusiastic way of marketing
attracts customers more. In social media highly affect buying behaviour of buyers as it promotes
and encourage buyers to follow trends.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Type
Types of research can be divided into two parts quantitative and qualitative. To identify
impact of social media marketing on Zara's customer buying behaviour researcher will choose
qualitative type of research. Scholar will investigate factors affecting consumer decision and
SMM by evaluating qualitative data.
Research Approach
For addressing research objectives, scholar will use inductive approach. This approach
will assist researcher in analysing impact of social media marketing on behaviour of customers.
Inductive approach will help scholar to assess qualitative study in systematic manner.
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Research Philosophy
There are two types of philosophies interpretivism and positivism. Which assist
researcher in identifying influential factors. In currents study researcher will use interpretivism
philosophy to identify factors that will affect buying decision of Zara's customers.
Data Collection
For gathering data for research there are two types primary and secondary that assist in
addressing objectives of research. For primary research, scholar will conduct survey on 20
customers of Zara in the form of questionnaire. And for secondary data articles and previous
reports on SMM will be used to make research accurate.
Sampling
For purpose of conducting survey to obtain desire outcome, researcher need to select
suitable sample. 20 customers of Zara have been selected to conduct goal-directed technique of
sampling.
Data analysis
In order to evaluate the data gathered from the survey the researcher will employ the
thematic perception test technique. This technique is used to analyse the qualitative data as
gathered through the responses.
Reliability and Validity
To ensure that reliability and validity is maintained in the research work the articles,
journals, books and papers that shall be taken in the secondary research will be of recent years
(Alalwan and et.al., 2017). Along with this the information used from the past researches will be
relevant to the topic and gathered from all copyright protected sources only.
Research limitations
Certain limitations that are associated with this research work can be namely time, money
and the unavailability of resources. Due to these limitations the SPSS technique will not be used
to conduct the study (Bigne and et.al., 2018). However, in order to remove such limitation from
the research the thematic perception test technique will be utilized and since the data is
qualitative in nature it will prove to be suitable. Apart from the primary data, scholarly articles
will also be studied which are relevant based on the keywords and themes of the topic.
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Ethical consideration
In order to abide by the ethical considerations of the research, the participation of the
respondents will be involved with their due consent and willingness regarding the same (Godey
and et.al., 2016). Also, the reference list will be included towards the end of the research to
ensure that the data has not been copied by the researcher.
TIMELINE
Activities/ Weeks 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Research topic selection
Designing research aims and
objectives
Developing research proposal
Literature review
Assessment of research
methods
Drafting questionnaire
Sample selection
Gathering the data
Analysing and interpretation of
the collected data
Concluding the findings
Recommendations
Report preparation
Submission to the tutor
Updating the feedback
Final submission
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Alalwan, A. A. and et.al. 2017. Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing
literature. Telematics and Informatics. 34(7). pp.1177-1190.
Bigne, E. and et.al. 2018. The impact of social media and offline influences on consumer
behaviour. An analysis of the low-cost airline industry. Current Issues in
Tourism. 21(9). pp.1014-1032.
Dessart, L., 2017. Social media engagement: a model of antecedents and relational
outcomes. Journal of Marketing Management. 33(5-6). pp.375-399.
Godey, B. and et.al. 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand
equity and consumer behavior. Journal of business research. 69(12). pp.5833-5841.
Manzoor, U. and et.al., 2020. Impact of Social Media Marketing on Consumer’s Purchase
Intentions: The Mediating role of Customer Trust. International Journal of
Entrepreneurial Research. 3(2). pp.41-48.
Shareef, M. A and et.al., 2019. Social media marketing: Comparative effect of advertisement
sources. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 46. pp.58-69.
Stephen, A. T., 2016. The role of digital and social media marketing in consumer
behavior. Current Opinion in Psychology. 10. pp.17-21.
Sundararaj, V. and Rejeesh, M.R., 2021. A detailed behavioral analysis on consumer and
customer changing behavior with respect to social networking sites. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services. 58. p.102190.
Tafesse, W. and Wien, A., 2018. Implementing social media marketing strategically: An
empirical assessment. Journal of Marketing Management. 34(9-10). pp.732-749.
Tuten, T. L., 2020. Social media marketing. SAGE Publications Limited.
Voramontri, D. and Klieb, L., 2019. Impact of social media on consumer
behaviour. International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences. 11(3). pp.209-
233.
Voramontri, D. and Klieb, L., 2019. Impact of social media on consumer
behaviour. International Journal of Information and Decision Sciences. 11(3). pp.209-
233.
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