Report on

“The Science of Social Proof and its use in

marketing”
Do Minute – Vile Parle West

Submitted by: Group 4

Jaskaran Singh – G054
Stuti Garodia – G019
Sagar Erande – I014
Venkatesh Gubba – I017
Sarang Modi – C040
Sagar Taneja – H061
Design of the study:

Experimental designs are highly functional especially when we seek correlation between cause

and effect in consumer research. In our current study, an experimental design consisting of three

between-subject conditions was applied.

The independent variables are social proof (number of google reviews, quality of ratings,

recommendations/ reviews commented by customers) . The intention to visit the food store and

order curated dishes is a measured variable.

We also conceptualised a process flow framework for conducting this experiment. The process

flow framework comprised of 6 steps.

Step 1 : Research (A secondary research has been performed to study factor importance

of reviews & recommendations before a sale or purchase)

Step 2 : Identification of clients (After the selection of food stores as the place where

experiment needs to be conducted , we drafted listed of potential clients on whom we

could easily and directly correlate impact of review system)

Step 3 : Pitching (A 2-minute pitch has been given to management at the store - which

helped us understanding what are other factors which could potentially affect the

outcome of the experiment.)

Step 4 : Approval of Do-minute food store (The store manager was also curious to study

the importance of social proof and the percentage factor contribution to sales)

Step 5 : Analysis of impact of reviews (We took the reviews data on weekly basis and

compared it with sales data to calculate the correlation index.)

Outcome variables to be influenced

We considered two variables as key decision parameters to measure the output of our

experiment. One being daily sales increase over a week and the other being the change in footfall

at the store per day over a week. We checked the store sales and footfall before and after

conducting the experiment to find out whether there was a significant difference in these figures

due to the social influence of reviews and ratings given on google.

Procedure of study conducted:

The study was conducted using survey method. It was covered in two broad ways:

 Primary surveys were conducted to ensure that people go and check ratings and reviews

before going to restaurants and it impacts their buying decision

 Surveys were conducted among the customers and sales representative of Do Minute to

identify the impact of ratings and reviews on decisions and hence sales.

Results:

The outcomes of the study were:

1. Increased sales: Do Minute reported increased sales from ₹2000-3000 per day to 2400-

3400 per day.

2. Increased number and quality of reviews: Do minute also witnessed increase in

number and quality of reviews.

3. Increased rating: Overall rating of Do Minute also increased from 3. to 4.9 as the

customers who liked the food also started rating.

 4. Increased footfall: Do Minute’s reported an increase in footfall by ~10% i.e. from 450-

550 customers to 570-670 customers

Limitations:

The experiment resulted in direct increase of sales but nonetheless there are some limitations to

this experiment.

 Not all the people believe in ratings especially the parents who feel that one can best

judge the place by the food and the general cleanliness around the place

 Ratings are sometimes not the best measure of a place and after a certain point the

average ratings become constant and it can have personal bias. It also doesn’t include the

weightage of amount of sale occurred in a transaction

 Inadequate data to provide weights to the readings. A person may give 5 rating point,

while the other may give 1. As a result, it becomes difficult to ascertain the correct

reading.