BTEC HND Research Project: Social Media and Customer Purchase at Tesco

This report investigates the influence of social media on customer purchase behavior within the retail sector, specifically focusing on a case study of Tesco. The research begins with an introduction to consumer behavior and the significant impact of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on purchasing decisions. It outlines the aims and objectives, which include understanding consumer purchasing behavior, determining the impact of social media, identifying the relationship between social media marketing and consumer purchase, and determining the factors associated with the consumer purchase decision. The report reviews the relevant literature, exploring concepts of consumer buying behavior and the impact of social media. It details the research methodology, including the research philosophy (interpretive) and approach (inductive), along with plans for data collection. The report also addresses factors contributing to the selection of the research topic and includes a questionnaire for data gathering, ensuring a comprehensive analysis of social media's effects on customer purchase behavior within the context of Tesco's operations. The report is structured to address the research questions, evaluate research techniques, interpret and analyze results, and provide recommendations, culminating in a conclusion and references.

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA
INFLUENCES CUSTOMER
PURCHASE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE..............................................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
1.1 Research Background............................................................................................................1
1.2 Factors Contribute to the process of Research project selection...........................................2
1.3 Literature Review..................................................................................................................2
1.4 Research Methodology.........................................................................................................6
1.5 Time Scale.............................................................................................................................8
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................9
2.1 Match the resources efficiently to research question............................................................9
2.2 Questionnaire........................................................................................................................9
2.3 Record and Collate Required Data......................................................................................10
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................17
3.1 Research Evaluation Techniques........................................................................................17
3.2 Interpret and analyse the result...........................................................................................17
3.3 Recommendation.................................................................................................................20
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................20
4.1 Covered in PPT...................................................................................................................20
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................20
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................25
Questionnaire............................................................................................................................25

TITLE
To examine how social media influence's customer purchase. With reference to the case study
of - Tesco Plc.
TASK 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background.
Consumer behaviour defined as individual, groups, organisation and all activities
associated with the purchase of product and services (Alalwan, 2018). Therefore, perception,
learning, motivation, belief's and attitude are those factors that can affect the buying behaviour
of the consumer. Social media tools have more considerable influences over the purchasing
decisions of the customers. However, it includes networking such as Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram and Twitter. Consumer behaviour is one of the vital concepts that need to be
understood to have an enhancement in the purchase of commodities (Fotiadis and Stylos, 2017).
The present report is based on business activities of Tesco, the supermarket chain that
deals in multinational groceries, one of the largest multinational retailers of the UK. This entity
has a market share of 28.4%.
Herein, the report will cover the following topics as aims and objectives that will be
framed on the basis of the research topic. Methodologies will be defined to opt suitable methods
so that depth investigation can be carried out. Lastly, the timescale will be given in terms to
provide a deadline for each task to get it done on the stipulated time.
Aim:
“To determine the influence of social media on the customer purchase in retail industry.
A study on Tesco”.
Objectives:
 To comprehend the concept of consumer purchasing behaviour.
 To determine the impact of social media on the customer purchase decisions.
 To identify the relationship between the social media marketing in retail and consumer
purchase.
 To determine the factors associated with the consumer purchase decision.
Research Question:
1

1. What is the concept of consumer purchasing behaviour?
2. How to determine the impact of social media on the customer purchase decisions?
3. What is the relationship between the social media marketing in retail and consumer
purchase?
4. What are the factors associated with the consumer purchase decision?
5.
1.2 Factors Contribute to the process of Research project selection
The existing research topic is based on to identify the influence of social media over
customer purchase. Therefore, Social media plays a crucial role in terms of attracting the
customer towards the product and services. It represents one of the significant roles to boost the
sales of the enterprise, by conducting the depth research on social media activities towards
analysing the behaviour of customers helps to satisfy the demand and wants of customers.
Raising customer demand towards social media is the factor that leads researcher to select this
topic and current issue is the biggest factor. However, social media aids to influence the mindset
of the customer towards changing their attitude and beliefs. Futher personal interest is another
factor to select this topic as this research will help the researcher in terms to gain the
understanding of social media marketing, and this also helps to the customer in order to identify
the reason that social media change its marketing process (Elg and Hultman, 2016). This
research will help to serve as an indicator to focus on potential areas that lead to enhancing
profitability and productivity within the enterprise.
1.3 Literature Review
Concept of consumer purchasing behaviour
According to the Bellini, Cardinali and Grandi, (2017) consumer buying behaviour is
the result of the attitude belief, preferences, intentions and decisions made by the consumer in
the market place before buying a product. Consumer buying behaviour is the interdisciplinary
subject areas which states the changing of attitudes of customers. It is quite difficult of the
organisations to determine the behaviour of consumer as it very frequently. Karimi, S.,
Papamichail and Holland, (2015) said that, the base of consumer behaviour is their analysis of
needs and demands.
As per the Pantano and Priporas, (2016), consumer behaviour is the process of decision
making where consumer select the products and services from variety of multiple of available
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products to the expectations of meeting the needs and demands that maximise the level of
satisfaction by minimising the cost. Roe and Bruwer, (2017) argued that, there are various
factors that determine the decision making of consumer which are preference, budget, age,
group, gender, budget, habits etc.
Impact of social media on the customer purchase decisions.
Ramanathan, Subramanian and Parrott, (2017) stated that, the journey of customers
contained variety of factors that lead to influence the consumer like products and services, target
ads, reviews and the most popular social media. Social media has raise the personal involvement
in the decision making of company regarding the production of goods and services. Social media
is said to be consumer generated media which undertake broad varieties of new sources of
online information. As per the findings from the report that, thee are 1.73 billion people across
the world. In 2017, the social operators at global level was estimated to be 2.55 billion (World-
wide Social Media Users, 2017). However, Grewal, Roggeveen and Nordfält, (2017) argues
that, the positive comments of users intends other to purchase the particular products of the
company is one of the benefit of social media. Social media has raise the engagement of
customers to the company as through social like Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc. they can ask
for products, designing, delivery date and any information regarding the product. Social media
has raise the interaction of customers towards the brand.
According to the Kang and Kim, (2017) social media also raises the concept of branding
as with social media, customers living in remote area of any where where outlet or store of
particular brand is not available so with the social media, consumer can purchase the brand
products from social media. Often customers are shaped by brand awareness. Lindsey-Mullikin
and Borin, (2017) said that, the increasing usage of social media has lead to major shift in the
approach to pursuing the awareness of consumer brand along with a good connection with brand
awareness and and buying intention. Social media has make the customers self directed as they
investigate about the brand, product and services online or through there network before making
the decision for purchase.
Relationship between the social media marketing in retail and consumer purchase.
According to the Pantano and Gandini, (2017) the behaviours of consumer is influences
by the social media of all the groups by applying the most suitable strategies of marketing as
well as to raise the sales of the company. There is being direct relationship between social media
3

marketing in retail and consumer purchase as social media marketing is able to change the
perception, attitudes of customers towards purchase and it has been identified that social media
is one of the largest effect on the customer buying decisions. Thus, the brand image is raised by
the increasing perception of customers towards the products and services of the company. Social
media has also raise the access or range of firm as with this new marketing strategies firm have
universal access. With over 3.19 billion social media users worldwide in 2018, social media has
become an important communication channel for brands (World-wide Social Media Users,
2018).
As per the views of Wu, Quyen and Rivas, (2017) social media has incredible impact of
the mind of consumer that has result in high on the consumer engagement. Consumer
engagement is one of the best advantage for the company as it build the customer loyalty and
customer loyalty is the most valuable asset for the company. Customer engagement also result in
boosting the website traffic as people used to click and visit website. There are about 2.77 billion
social media users in 2019 (Effect On Website Traffic, 2019). In branding of products social
media has plays profound role as it has increased the awareness of customers as well as it has
also keep the customer with daily updates which is another way to keep the customer in touch.
With the increasing preference of social media, now customers are expecting from all the brands
or company to have online presence so that they can do shopping from anywhere instead of
searching for stores.
4

Factors associated with the consumer purchase decision
According to the Lo, Lin and Hsu, (2016) the behaviour of consumer is widely
categorized between decision and actions that influence the behaviour of customers. It aids in
underlying the factors that deal wit the customers attitudes and priorities. Social media is one of
the medium that companies inn retail industry is regularly finding new ways to reach customers.
As per the views of Cho and Lee, (2017) printing advertising and television is said to be the
primary elements of marketing strategies but time has changed as now social media has become
fundamental components of marketing strategies of the company. There are some critical factors
which are associated with the purchasing decision. Economic factor is the primary one that
influence the purchasing decision as it states that either customer can able to buy the product or
services or not. It is simple that people cannot able to purchase when they cannot able to afford
it.
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Illustration 1: Effect On Website Traffic
(Source: Effect On Website Traffic. 2019)

Badgaiyan and Verma, (2015) said that, group influence is the factor that is associated
with the purchase decision as group can be family members, classmates, finds, peers, relatives.
For example, fast food is preferred by mass people over green vegetables. Baubonienė and
Gulevičiūtė, (2015) argued that, marketing campaign is said to be one of the factors that
influences the purchasing decision of customers. It can be said that, marketing campaign is
known to bring a great shift in market shares of retail industry by influencing the purchase
decision of customers. Marketing campaign keep the customers aware about the products and
services. On the contrary, social media is also one of the factor that enable customer to purchase
the particulars goods and services. The likes and dislikes of users on the post also influence's
customer to purchase that particular goods.
1.4 Project Specification and Research Methodology
In this research project there are four task in which in Task one there is proposal where
researcher will outline the research report such as what is the methods is to be selected, aims and
objectives, time scale etc. In task 2, researcher have panned the resources used for the research
and also collect the data and prepare themes accordingly. In last, task three, scholar has
presented outcomes of data collection.
Introduction
It is defined as a systematic plan that aids to conduct the research activities. It is effective
term that aids to opt the suitable method to gather the detailed information (Daniel, Kumar, and
Omar, 2018). Therefore, research methodologies defined in the following manner as -
Research Philosophy
This is a procedure that defined as belief with the help of which data about the
phenomenon can be collected, analysed and used. This is one of the vast topics that aids to
discuss the topic in great details (Cazeaux, 2017). Therefore, research philosophies categorised
as ontology, epistemology etc. Hence, epistemology classified into components as positivism,
realism and Interpretivism. However, research will adopt interpretive philosophy so that better
conclusion can be drawn.
Research Approach
This is defined as plan and procedure that consisting of the broad assumption to the
detailed method of data collection, analysis and interpretation. Therefore, the approaches to the
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researcher classified as inductive, deductive and Abductive etc. Hence, research will use the
inductive approach so that it will help to contribute to the emergence of new theory. This is the
theory that aids to generalise the data from specific to general (Teherani and et.al., 2015).
Research Design
It is defined as a framework that aids to combine several techniques chosen by the
researcher to analyse various components relates to the study. This relates to framing the overall
strategy that helps to decide to integrate differed element of study inconsistent and formal
manner (Abdulkadiroğlu and et.al., 2017). Hence, research design classified as quasi-
experimental, descriptive, correlation, and experimental. In this, the researcher will have the use
of descriptive analysis so that extent data can be gathered over the topic of research.
Sampling
This termed out as statistical analysis, and there is a number of predetermined
observations that can be taken from a larger group of population. Sampling can be divided into
two categorises which are probabilistic and non-probabilistic sampling Hence, research will
have the use of a probabilistic sampling method in terms to carry out the process of research
systematically (Yang and et.al., 2018). Therefore, the sampling size will be taken as 20
respondents as consumers by using random sampling technique.
Data collection
This is defined as a process that leads to gathered and measured information on the
variables on interest. It is one of the systematic methods that enable to get complete and accurate
data from a variety of sources. Hence, data can be collected with the help of primary and
secondary method. Primary methods are which where data is collected for the first time and it is
collected by the researcher own efforts. Whereas, secondary methods are which where data is
collected from other sources (Yeakley and et.al., 2016.). To determine the implication of social
media over the customer purchasing behaviour, the researcher will have use primary methods as
researcher will conduct survey and gather the data via questionnaire.
Data analysis
It is one of the effective methods that process as to analyse, cleansing, transforming and
modelling the data in terms to deal with the goal of discovering information. It is a procedure
that is classified into categories as qualitative and quantitative analysis. In this, the researcher
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will use qualitative techniques by adopting thematic analysis. This will be helpful in terms to
undertake reliable and authentic information (Mihas, 2019).
1.5 Time Scale
The time scale of research aids to define the time limit in which activities relate with
research has to be conducted. Therefore, it defines the schedule of activities that provides the
stipulated deadline so that all task can be accomplished. Thus, it's defined as:
Activities
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
Week
11
Week
12
Selection of topic
Framing aim and
objectives
Conducting
literature review
Selection of
research methods
Completion of
research proposal
Conducting
literature review
Selection of
research methods
Collection and
Analysis of Data
Drawing
conclusion and
framing
recommendations
Final submission
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TASK 2
2.1 Match the resources efficiently to research question
Resources are the materials which are required for the competing the task or activity. It is
very important to have proper allocation of resources before starting the research activities.
Resources required for competing the research are human and financial resources. Human
resources includes staff members such as risk manager, assistant data collector and some other
person On the other hand, financial resources includes the money to buy the research materials
for the study such as stationery items, laptop, USB, travelling cost etc. Further, it also required
fund for paying the charges of several websites which are locked and need access from that. In
addition to this, the relationship between research questions and hypothesis is the both are
developed before the study starts.
2.2 Questionnaire
QUESTIONNAIRE
Name:
Age:
Gender:
1. Are you aware of the social media?
 Yes
 No
 May be
2. Did you shop from online networking site?
 Yes
 No
 Sometimes
3. Do you agree that social media is one of the best channel for shopping?
 Highly Agree
 Agree
 Neither Agree nor Disagree
 Highly Disagree
 Disagree
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4. What is the impact of social media marketing on business?
 Increase brand awareness
 Boost Website Traffic
 Generate leads and sales
5. What are the factors that influence the customer purchase?
 Economic
 Marketing Campaign
 Likes and Dislikes on post
 Group Influence's
 Others
6. Did you think social media impact on the customer purchase decisions?
 Yes
 No
 May be
7. How often you shop through social media?
 On sale and offers
 Monthly
 Occasion
 Most Probably
8. What are some social media network you mostly prefer?
 Facebook
 Instagram
 Twitter
2.3 Record and Collate Required Data.
Theme 1: Maximum customers are aware of social media.
PARTICULARS FREQUENCY
Yes 12
No 6
May be 2
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