Woolworths Ltd: Analyzing Social Media's Impact on Consumer Buying

This research report investigates the impact of social media on consumer buying behavior within Woolworths Group Limited in Australia, addressing the declining consumer retention rate due to ineffective marketing strategies. The study aims to understand the conceptual relationship between social media and consumer buying behavior, evaluate the specific impacts of social media on purchasing decisions, and recommend social media strategies to enhance consumer engagement with Woolworths' products and services. A survey was conducted, and the results were analyzed using SPSS to assess the importance of social media in influencing consumer choices, brand perception, and overall buying behavior. The literature review explores various perspectives on social media's role in marketing and consumer engagement, highlighting successful examples from other luxury brands and discussing the importance of social interaction and user-generated content. The findings provide insights into how social media affects consumer awareness, purchasing decisions, and brand loyalty within the context of Woolworths.

Running head: INDUSTRY RESEARCH PROJECT
Impact of social media on consumer buying behavior in the case of
Woolworths Limited, Australia
Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author’s Note-

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Acknowledgement
I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my committee chair Professor _________,
who has the attitude and the substance of a genius: he continually and convincingly conveyed a
spirit of adventure in regard to research and scholarship, and an excitement in regard to teaching.
Without his guidance and persistent help this dissertation would not have been possible.
I would like to thank my committee members, Professor _______ and Professor _______, whose
work demonstrated to me that the impact of social media in enhancing the customer buying
behavior in Woolworths with comparative literature and modern technology, should always
transcend academia and provide a quest for our times.
In addition, a thank you to Professor _________, who introduced me to social media analysis,
and whose enthusiasm for the “underlying structures” had lasting effect. I thank the University of
_______ for permission to include copyrighted pictures as a part of my dissertation.

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Abstract
This research study deals with the case study of Woolworths. The social media implementation
in Woolworths enhances the customer buying behavior with the company. Woolworths Group
Limited is a retails store that operates through the Australian Food, Endeavour Drinks, Hotels,
Big W, New Zealand food and many more. The main aim of this research report is to declining
retention rate of consumers and gaining the turnover of the consumer because of a lack of
effective marketing strategies. This paper details the impact of social media on the buying
behavior of the customer and states different ways of social media that are adopted by
organizations to increase their sales. Many authors have stated the details of social media on the
customer buying behavior which are analyzed in this research paper. For analyzing the
importance of the social media, a survey has been conducted whose result are analyzed by
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) method.

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Table of Contents
Table of Tables................................................................................................................................3
Table of Figures...............................................................................................................................4
1. Introduction and Research Problem.............................................................................................5
1.1 Background............................................................................................................................5
1.2 Problem Statement.................................................................................................................6
1.3 Research aim..........................................................................................................................6
1.4 Research Question.................................................................................................................6
1.5 Outline of the study:..............................................................................................................7
2. Literature review..........................................................................................................................7
2.1 Conceptual understanding regarding social media and consumer buying behavior: A case
study of Woolworths Limited, Australia.....................................................................................7
2.2 Impacts of social media on consumer buying behavior: A case study of Woolworths
Limited, Australia......................................................................................................................12
2.3 Social media strategy to enhance the consumer buying behavior towards the products and
services: A case study of Woolworths Limited, Australia........................................................14
2.4 Research Gap:......................................................................................................................18
3. Methodology..............................................................................................................................18
3.1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................18
3.2 Research Philosophy (Post Positivism)...............................................................................18

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3.2 Research Approach..............................................................................................................19
3.3 Research Design..................................................................................................................19
3.4 Data Collection Method.......................................................................................................19
3.5 Sampling Method and Sample Size.....................................................................................20
3.6 Data Analysis Method.........................................................................................................21
3.7 Summary..............................................................................................................................21
4. Findings.....................................................................................................................................21
5. Discussion..................................................................................................................................37
6. Limitations and Conclusion.......................................................................................................48
7. Reference...................................................................................................................................51

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Table of Tables
Table 1: Tool, technique and process of data collection...............................................................19
Table 2: Sampling Technique and size..........................................................................................20
Table 3: Survey Response from the Respondents.........................................................................36
Table 4: Representing response of the respondents that specifies gender.....................................36
Table 5: Representing response of the respondents that specifies the age group..........................37
Table 6: Response regarding the social media use for gaining information..................................38
Table 7: Representing response about main reason for using social media..................................39
Table 8: Representing response about how social media helps to gain depth awareness about the
product or service..........................................................................................................................40
Table 9: Representing response of the respondents about impact of social media in purchasing
decision..........................................................................................................................................41
Table 10: Representing response showing social media affects the respondents for moving
towards the competitor brand........................................................................................................43
Table 11: Representing response showing which social media is highly used by the respondents
.......................................................................................................................................................44
Table 12: Representing response getting their beliefs about fast service of the company using
social media...................................................................................................................................45
Table 13: Representing response showing their believes about hiring celebrities or sportsperson
for promoting their brand...............................................................................................................46

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Table of Figures
Figure 1: Five stage model of purchasing behavior of customer...................................................10
Figure 2: Influence of Social Media that enhances purchasing decisions.....................................15
Figure 3: Gallup Influence of Social Media for Purchasing Decisions.........................................16
Figure 4: Customer Expecting Quick Service from Social Media................................................17
Figure 5: Response of the Respondents.........................................................................................38
Figure 6: Response of the Respondents.........................................................................................39
Figure 7: Response of the Respondents.........................................................................................40
Figure 8: Response of the Respondents.........................................................................................41
Figure 9: Response of the Respondents.........................................................................................42
Figure 10: Response of the Respondents.......................................................................................43
Figure 11: Response of the Respondents.......................................................................................44
Figure 12: Response of the Respondents.......................................................................................45
Figure 13: Response of the Respondents.......................................................................................46
Figure 14: Response of the Respondents.......................................................................................48

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1. Introduction and Research Problem
1.1 Background
The case study that is taken is the Woolworths Group Limited that operates on the retails
stores. This organization actually operates through the Australian Food, Endeavour Drinks,
Hotels, Big W, New Zealand food and many more. The Australian Food segment mainly
engages with the procurement as well as resale of the food products to all the customers who
lives in Australia (Woolworths.com.au, 2018). This organization has 1,008 supermarkets as well
as Metro stores. New Zealand Food that is involved in this helps in procurement and reselling of
the food and the drinks to the customers who lives in New Zealand. This New Zealand Food
segment mainly operates on total of 181 Countdown supermarkets and also are engaged in
wholesale operations. The segment of Endeavour Drinks mainly resells as well as procures liquor
products to the customers residing in Australia. The Endeavour Drinks has 1,545 liquor shops
under BWS brands and Dan Murphy. Endeavour Drinks also has online platforms that has
Summergate stores, winemarket.com.au, Cellarmasters and the Langtons. The segment of Big W
procures as well as resells the products of the general merchandise to all the customers residing
in Australia. There are 183 BIG W stores under this segment. The segment of the hotels mostly
offers hospitality as well as leisure services that includes drinks and food, entertainment, gaming,
as well as accommodation in Australia. This hotels segments of Woolworths operates almost 323
hotels that includes dining, gaming, and operations of venue hire, accommodation, and bars
(Woolworths.com.au, 2018). There is one other segment that is involved in the business of
property leasing. The Woolworths Group Limited generally has strategic alliance with Caltex
across convenience, food wholesale, fuel supply, loyalty, and redemption. Previously, the

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company was known as the Woolworths Limited but has renamed its name to Woolworths
Group Limited in the year 2017. This company was founded in the year 1924 and is located in
Bella Vista in Australia.
1.2 Problem Statement
The key issue of Woolworths is declining 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.
1.3 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

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1.4 Research Question
The above stated research objectives addresses the following research questions.
1. How to establish an understanding between the social media and the buying behaviors
of the consumer.
2. What are the impacts of social media on the buying behavior of customer?
3. What are the social media strategies that helps to enhance the consumer buying
behavior?
1.5 Outline of the study:
This research paper details the study of social media with that of the customer buying
behavior in the taken case study: Woolworths Group Limited. This research paper details impact
of the social media on the buying behavior of the customer and states the different ways in which
social media are adopted by organizations to increase their sales. Many authors have stated the
details of social media on the customer buying behavior which are analyzed in this research
paper. For analyzing the importance of the social media, a survey has been conducted whose
result are analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) method.
2. Literature review
2.1 Conceptual understanding regarding social media and consumer buying
behavior: A case study of Woolworths Limited, Australia
Kumar et al. (2016) the social media gives the marketers many opportunities so that the
business organizations can reach to their targeted customer in the social communities and
therefore construct a personal relationship in between the seller and the customer. The concept of

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social media has changed the creation of brand content, distributes the system, as well as
consumes the transferring the shape of the brand image from the marketers (Solomon et al.
2014). This can change the way of making a connection between the consumer and the
organization and also changes the content. There is a key role of social media in the luxury sector
for making a particular brand a successful one. Hajli (2014) has explained by considering an
example of Louis Vuitton (LV) videos on the Facebook page. LV has posts catwalk presentation,
providing all the fans of LV an opportunity for enjoying the catwalk show. Godey et al. (2016)
another example of this online social marketing is Burberry. This organization has launched
online shopping site for the consumer of China which offers a 24 hours online service via chat
systems. This particular brand has many accounts on the Chinese social media site. The local
celebrities then sends comments to Burberry account on the Weibo. In the year 2012, the
Burberry has all total of 180,000 followers in Weibo, which has increased from 90,000 in the
year 2011. Another social networking example explained by Ioanăs and Stoica (2016), the
company of Hermes launched an online site named as “J'aime mon carré” which means I love
my Scarf. This online website has signature square scarves. This online website of Hermes was
directly connected to its Facebook page that shows young girls wearing the scarves as turbans on
their head, tying scarves as tie, belts and also tie them around neck.
The interaction of the social media has altered the communication in between the
consumer and the brands. Schivinski and Dabrowski (2016) in one of the article found out that
the social interaction is very important startup for creating the content of the business that are
user generated. The social media concept offers assistance to social media and also provides
space for the discussion as well as exchange of the ideas. Erkan and Evans (2016) stated that
there is social interaction that describes the users about who contributes to the platforms of social

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media interaction and also helps them to the talk about some particular products or brands. Hajli
(2015) divided the group of social media in to two groups. Profile based group and content based
group. This division of group depends on nature of connection as well as nature of interaction.
The social media that is profile based mainly focuses on the individual member of the group
(Nadeem et al. 2015). The topics or the information that are related to members and main reason
is encouraging the users of social media for connecting with some particular topics or
information. On the other hand, the social media that is profile based encourages connection in
between the user and the consumer (Balakrishnan, Dahnil and Yi 2014). This is because the
profile based media are more interested in users who are behind the profile. This includes
Facebook, Whatsapp, or Twitter. The crises in economic mainly encourages the companies that
studies the links in between the brands and the consumers in great depth. Dessart, Veloutsou and
Morgan-Thomas (2015) stated that consumer buy luxury products mainly for two reasons. One
for their pleasure and other reason is because of the success symbol. According to Siamagka et
al. (2015), the social media maintains the future of the luxury brands which depends on the
balance in between both the motivations. According to Zhang and Benyoucef (2016), this
balance may change because of the geographical area. For example, the luxury goods where they
are produced as well as consumed and the countries where the luxury brands are recent
phenomenon a balance is to be maintained.
The consumers can buy the luxury products as the purpose of gifts. Despite in
motivations of the purchasing differences, the brand is the main way to establish a connection
with the consumers (Ngai et al. 2015). The perception of a consumer is mainly changed because
of the brand value and the attitudes of the customers also changes because of that. This may
include different brand awareness, image perceptions, as well as the preference for brand. The