Analyzing Social Media's Impact on Customer Choice in Retail (M&S)

This research project investigates the impact of social media on customer choice within the retail industry, using Marks & Spencer as a case study. The project begins with an introduction highlighting the crucial role of social media in modern marketing, focusing on how companies can connect with customers, provide information, and influence purchasing decisions. The project aims to analyze the effects of social media on customer attraction and perception, identifying various techniques employed by retailers like Marks & Spencer to engage customers. The project includes a literature review defining key concepts such as customer behavior, social media, and relevant social media techniques like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The research methodology section outlines the research philosophy (positivism), research approach (deductive), and data collection methods to be used. The project is designed to explore how social media influences consumer decisions, particularly in the context of online purchasing and the impact of both positive and negative information on customer choices. The research also considers resource implications, including time and funding constraints, and the use of tools like Gantt charts to manage the project effectively. The project concludes with an overview of the research specifications and the component that lead to the process of research project.

Research Project

Table of Contents

Research Title
To Analyse the impact of social media on the customer choice in retail industry: A
study of Marks &Spencer
INTRODUCTION
In the present era, social media plays a very crucial role in the marketing sector
because most of the people are connected to this platform. Social media is a platform at
which company can easily get touch with the customer and provide the information
about product and services. It is the best medium for the corporation to attract the
customer and provide information about product price, feature, discount etc (Creswell,
2013). The following research project provides the depth knowledge and understanding
about the social media impact on the customer choice and perception. Social media
assist to customer attraction and getting their feedback and review about the product
and services. The present research is based on the study of social media on the
customer choice and perception in the Mark &Spencer. It is one of the famous retail
outlets which deal with clothing, home products and luxury food product. The major
objective of this research is to analyse the impact of social media and identify that how it
helps on the customer attraction toward the organisation. Various techniques of social
media will identify in this respect to encourage and attract the customer toward the
product sand services of Marks and Spencer. In addition to this, ways will also suggest
by the researcher which can assist in encouraging customer by social media.
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1.1 Preparation and recording possible research project outline specifications
Aims: To Analyse the impact of social media on the customer choice in retail industry: A
study of Marks &Spencer
Objective
 To understand the meaning of customer behaviour
 To understand the meaning and concept of social media
 To determine the techniques used by retail industry for attracting customers
 To assess the impact of social media on marketing and sales To recommend several ways through which social media can help to attract the
large number of customer
Resource implication
For the current study, the investigator will use some resource to accomplish the entire
research. In the entire research, an investigator will limit time period and fund thus it
becomes hard for the investigator to carry out the study. In order to overcome the
impact of time and fund resource, the investigator will adopt the activity based costing
method under which activities will plan according to limited time and fund. While the
whole research will finish within the small period and this implication will influence the
result of the entire work. In order to decrease the impact of resource, an investigator will
use Gantt chart technique. Each activity and event will allocate within a specific time
duration so as the desired work can accomplish within a time period. Furthermore,
some secondary resource will also use by the investigator to collect the data.
1.2 Component that leads to the process of research project
At the time of selecting the topic of research, an investigator will face several factors
which affect the perception. The major factor is the personal interest which influence
scholar at large manner because researcher desires to identify the impact of social
media on the customer perception and choice in the Marks &Spencer. The another
reason for selecting this topic is to assess that how many social media techniques can
be used in the retail industry. Furthermore, there is sufficient data are available on this
topic thus the scholar influence to choose this particular topic of customer behaviour.
There will various studies conduct by the scholar so their finding and argument can
assist scholar in getting the appropriate result about the topic.
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1.3 Critical review of key references
Meaning of customer behaviour and perception
As per the view of (Smith, 2015) customer behaviour is the study of individuals, group or
organisation and the processes they used to select, secure, use and dispose of product
and service to satisfy their desires. As per the view of (Fiegen, 2010), a customer is that
individual who purchases product and services from the market for their end use.
Silverman, 2016 Customer behaviour is an attribute which affects various kind of
components like demographic, geographic, social, psychological etc. Customer
behaviour is very sensitive and mostly influenced by their needs, wants and desire
about something. As per the view of customer behaviour refers to the actions of
customers in the marketplace and the underlying motives for those actions. Customer
behaviour is the decision and action of the individuals who purchase goods and
services from the market for their personal consumption. Personal factor is the major
component of age, gender, education and income level which affect the customer
behaviour at the time of purchasing.
Meaning and concept of social media
According to the (Fiegen, 2010), social media is one of the online communication
channels which assist in sharing the information and message between the individuals.
It is a kind of application and website that enables users to share and create their won
page and content in social networking. As per the view of social media is a medium
through which any individual can create their won page and share their information to
other or public. It is an electronic communication platform through which people create
online communities to exchange information, idea, thoughts, mood, personal message
and other content like audio, video, images, links, files etc. As per the view of (Garner
and Scott, 2011), social media assist in identifying customer feedback and review about
the product and services. The company can easily get touch with the customer and ask
the feedback and their comment about the product and services. By identifying the
comment and review of a customer, a firm can make necessary changes in the existing
commodities and services.
Analyse the techniques of social media
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As per the view of (Kumar, 2014.) With the assistance of social media
techniques, a company can attract a large number of a customer at a single time and
also provide the information about a product to a large number of public. As per the
view of (Panneerselvam, 2014. ) customer can more attract toward purchasing because
social media platform attracts them by disclosing images, video, audio, and other
content of product and services. Following are various tools and technique related to
social media which can use by organisation to influence customer choice-
Facebook: As per the view of (Silverman, 2016) Facebook is a social networking site for
the user so as they can communicate and transfer their information and message with
other and get keep in touch with friends and other individuals. In the context of the
corporation, Facebook is a page where a company can generate its own content able
business as well as product and services. The company can generate Facebook pages
about its own business and get comment and review of a customer about product and
services. On the Facebook, there is a like and share button through which anyone can
easily like by click and share that particular page to other.
Twitter: As per the view of (Silverman, 2016) twitter is defined as a microblogging. In
this social media marketing site, a user of Twitter send some Tweets which is just like a
text messaging in 140 characters. This media can use by the retail sector to promoting
their product and services. A retail outlet can use this platform like Facebook.
YouTube- As per the view of (Safko and Lon, 2010) you, a tube is one another
important platform of social media through which anyone can share their own video to
the public. By making a small video about product and services, a company can make
its one image in the front of a customer and attract them for purchase. Thus, it is the
best platform to attract the people toward the product and services.
Assessment of the impact of social media on the customer choice in retail
organisation
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As per the view of (Stelzner and Michael, 2011), social media is the very helpful
platform for the retail industry because it is as the medium through which corporation
can create and generate the own page on the internet website and share the content
send information about product and services. The customer is those individuals who
purchase the product and services for their end use from the market. In the retail sector,
there is a large demand for customer goods and services so if company promote its
product by social media then it will great impact of the perception and choose of a
customer. As per the view of (Safko and Lon, 2010) in the today's era, customer are
more prefer to use the internet and online purchasing because in today's time internet
use is continuously increased. Every customer wants to purchase the product by online
because it is the time-saving method. The customer is influenced by the information
available on these platforms. As per the view of (Smith, 2015) customer is more
influenced by negative information than the positive information in making a product
choice with social media. While any customer wants to purchase the product then social
media is the very helpful platform which assists in proving the review of the particular
product and services. By reading comment and review, a customer can influence to
purchase that particular product. The content and information about product and
services are easy to spread by use of social media which help a customer to
understand the usefulness and feature of a product. By attractive design, audio, video,
content and full information about the company as well as product, a customer can
more attract toward the commodities to purchase.
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1.4 Research project specification
The following research is based on the study the impact of social media on the
customer choice in the Retail industry. In order to carry out the study, the researcher will
be selected Marks &Spencer UK. In order to attain the research objective, scholar will
take the consideration of following research specification-
A methodology is an approach which is used by the scholar in order to conduct the
research and get the appropriate conclusion. Research methodology is based on the
various factor that is divided into their sub-parts (Daniel and Sam, 2011). It is a studied
which is the important part of the entire research and which gives the idea for gathering
the data and information. Research methodology assists in designing such element
through which research study can easily conduct. Data collection and data analysis is
very important part of the research methodology which helps in attaining the aim and
objective of research by collecting the information and their analysis.
Research philosophy-
The research philosophy depends on the explanation of the process of collection of
data and analysis. It is an idea which assists investigator in defining the entire
procedure of data collection and analysis. There are major two kinds of philosophy that
are positivism and interpretivism. In the context of positivism, the scholar will use the
various theories and find to test the subjective concept. In this manner, scholar used to
different concept and result to test the research (Garner and Scott, 2013). On the other
hand in the context of positivism research philosophy, the scholar will consider the
major objective of the research. In the present research, a scholar will use positivism
research philosophy because project address some objective and aims. With the
assistance of positivism philosophy, a scholar can analyse the impact of social media
on the customer choice in the retail industry.
Research approach- Research approach assists to scholar to analyse and determine
the appropriate conclusion and result of the research by either hypothesis or theory.
There is major two type of research approach that is inductive and deductive which
assist to scholar to perform the research outcomes (Panneerselvam, 2014). In the
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context of the inductive approach, in the starting of the study general view will explain
so as the study can develop as a different theory which assists in the development of
the conceptual framework for the analysis of data. If the research question is already
valuable in the research then investigator will sue the inductive research approach. On
the other hand, if research will base on the hypothesis frames to address the research
issue then it is known as a deductive approach of research. In the following research,
the scholar will use the inductive framework because entire research will base on the
research question which will frame to identify the impact of social media on the
customer choice in the retail company.
Research technique- In the research, analysis of the collected data is very important
which aids in obtaining the appropriate result of the study. There are major two kinds of
research technique through which collect the data and analyse them to get the effective
finding that is qualitative and quantitative. In the context of qualitative technique, the
information and data can collect from the relevant theories, models and concepts. In this
technique, there is not any kind of calculation based on the maths (Silverman, 2016).
On the other hand in the quantitative research, the research study based ion the fact's
and finding which can obtain from the data collection and figure. In the present
research, both methods will use because investigator will know about the concept of
social media, its techniques and consumer behaviour by various theories and literature.
On the other hand, a scholar will take the response from the customer of Marks and
Spencer who is influenced by the social media and purchase the product by online.
Research design- In the entire research project, research design plays a very crucial
role because research design can be done in so many ways that are descriptive,
experimental and other casual research. In the following research, a descriptive design
will use by investigator so the components which are already in practices their
explanation can be done.
Data collection-
In the research data collection is one of the mots important parts through which
investigator can able to collect the data about the research topic. There are two kinds of
data that is primary and secondary. In the primary data, an investigator will prepare a
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structured questionnaire to contain with open and close-ended questions (Smith, 2015).
The main aim of these question is to identify the impact of social media on the customer
perception of retail organisation and how they influence to purchasing by this medium.
On the other hand, secondary data will collect from books, blogs, journals, Marks
&Spencer websites etc.
Sampling: In order to address the research objective, the investigator will use random
number sampling which provides appropriate criteria of investigation (Silverman, 2016).
The total number of a sample will 20 respondent or customer of the Marks and Spencer
who use the social media for purchasing the product.
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1.5 Appropriate plan and procedure for the agree research specification
Activity/Week 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Formulation of research proposal
Preparing aim and objectives
Writing background research
study
Assortment of suitable research
methodologies
Data collection by using primary
and secondary sources
Examination of the collected data
Interpretation of collected
information to generate expected
results
Conclusion and recommendations
Submission of draft report
Modifications as per the feedback
comments
Final Submission
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