Impact of Social Media Advertising on Consumer Buying Behaviour: With Special Reference to Fast Fashion Industry

Abstract

Recently, social media advertising has become a key component of the most successful fashion brands' marketing strategies. With the rise of social media, the majority of fashion retailers have started to identify the opportunities of using social media networks to attract new customers. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social media advertising on consumer buying behavior towards fast fashion. Along with the study, it measures the overall impact of social media advertising on the consumer decision making process in line with fast fashion industry. This study adopts a descriptive quantitative research design and data was collected through self-administrated questionnaire. The population of this study is taken from active social media users in Western province and a sample of 300 consumers was selected using the convenience sampling method. The hypotheses were tested using Correlation and Regression analysis since the purpose of the study is to measure the impact of each independent variable on the chosen dependent variable. The present study revealed that social media advertising has a positive influence on consumer buying behavior towards the fast fashion industry. Three independent variables out of four, namely entertainment, familiarity, and social imaging, have a significant influence on consumer behavior, while the remaining variable, advertising expenditure, has no statistically significant influence. Also the study provides valuable implications for the fast fashion industry, allowing marketers to use the findings to identify their consumers' real buying behavior in a digital environment and make decisions accordingly.