BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT DISSERTATION (Proposal)

Research title

The Impact of Social Media on Customer Purchase Decisions in the

retail industry; A case study on J Sainsbury, UK

Student name

Student ID

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2

2. Theoretical Background...............................................................................................................3

2.1 Literature review....................................................................................................................3

2.2 Research aim..........................................................................................................................7

2.3 Research questions and objectives.........................................................................................7

2.4 Justification and contextualization........................................................................................8

3. Research Methodology................................................................................................................9

3.1 Research Philosophy..............................................................................................................9

3.2 Research approach.................................................................................................................9

3.3 Research strategy.................................................................................................................10

3.4 Research design and methodology......................................................................................10

3.5 Type of investigation...........................................................................................................11

3.6 Data analysis........................................................................................................................11

3.6 Access and ethics.................................................................................................................11

3.8 Research limitations.............................................................................................................12

References..................................................................................................................................12

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1. Introduction
Social media has brought significant changes to the business world (Dibb et al., 2018).
Nowadays, social media platforms have become a popular means for communicating with the
customers and driving them towards the brand. Not only social media platforms are used as the
means for market communication, but they are also platforms where the customers interact with
each other and share their experiences with particular brands. This has a major impact on a brand
because this create a public impression towards the brand. Social media influences customers in
many other ways, which will be explored in this research.

Despite the popularity of social media in marketing functions, many businesses fail to utilize the
benefits of social media due to the lack of proper strategies (Ryan, 2018). For example, not all
supermarket brands in the UK have the same level of customer concentration despite all of them
using these media to attract their target customers (Mahoney and Tang, 2018). Thus, it is
important to see how actually social media makes impact on customer purchase decisions by
taking account of the opinions or responses of the customers themselves. The findings of the
research could lead to the assessment of effective social media strategies for more effective
targeting of the customers.

This research focuses on Sainsbury’s which is one of the top brands in the retail supermarket
chain sector. The company has been a top competitor in this sector, with its marketing tactics.
Since 2016, the company has been investing a significant amount of money on social media
presence and strategies to stay connected with the market and establish a strong brand image in
the sector. They use social media to stay engaged with their customers. They have a dedicated
team of social media marketers corresponding with the customers. The brand was announced as
the most socially influential brand based on its Klout scores, which evaluated different retail
brands on the criteria of customer engagement and online social media popularity. They engage
with their customers on different occasions with personalized messages to create an attractive
impression among the customers (Ratcliff, 2019). The findings of this report will highlight how
their social media marketing influence the customer purchase decision.

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2. Theoretical Background
2.1 Literature review
The research will involve exploring the relevant theories of the use of social media in marketing,
customer decision making, customer behavior and the impact of effective marketing on
customers.

By definition, marketing refers to the process of creating the demand of a product, promoting the
product and selling the product to its target market segments. Marketing also involves
conducting market research and advertisements to increase the exposure of a product in the
industry (Dibb et al., 2018). All these activities can now be done easily with the help of social
media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and others. These platforms
give the opportunity to interact with the right target audiences in the most cost-effective way
possible with the best outcomes if the company has been able to strategize its efforts properly
(Doyle, 2013).

The effectiveness of marketing functions depends mostly on the selection of marketing channels,
the marketing message, the marketing strategies and the marketing tactics. Being successful in
the market is more difficult these days because there is a major competition in any industry
(Morris, 2009). And needless to say, retail sector is perhaps one of the most competitive and
highly saturated industries of all. So, when there are many brands such as Tesco, ASDA, M&S,
Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury, etc., any one particular organization has better chances of succeeding with
its marketing communication and engagement with the customers. This is where, social media
influence comes in, because the current market is mostly driven by the social media trends
(Riewoldt, 2002). With over 2.5 billion of people being active on social media platforms, it is
quite understandable what these platforms can add or take from a brand (Castillo, 2018).

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Figure: Global dominance of social media (Castillo, 2018)

Social media platforms are used by the marketing team of Sainsbury to connect with the
customers and target the potential customers. They frequently update information, announce
offers, discounts etc to motivate new and old customers to purchase from their outlets (Heil and
Thomas, 2006). Sainsbury has a 24/7-hour online chat support which helps the customers to get
information all around the clock. The social media platforms are also used for sharing stories and
contents which could create new leads for the stores. Basically, the purpose of the social media
marketing at Sainsbury is to connect through engaging contents and information exchange
(Naveen, 2019).

Customer decisions on the other hand, is a subset of customer behavior. Customers decide to
purchase a particular product when they have been acknowledged of it, intrigued to it and
attracted to it. This is upon a business’s responsibility to inform their customers about their
products and stay engaged with the customers through communication and information, and
supports even after they have purchased the products (Edwards and Edwards, 2011). Again, this
process is made easier and more effective with the help of social media platforms given the high
concentration of the customers in these platforms, and the influence that these platforms have on
their general behaviours (Mahoney and Tang, 2018).

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Figure: Customer decision making process (Charlesworth, 2018)

Social media is used in the retail sector for customer engagement, customer support, customer
service, promotion and advertisement activities. Social media benefits the businesses with the
opportunity to customized target marketing (Naveen, 2019). It is a cost-effective way to
introduce the brand, its products, offers, or any other information to the customers of the retail
industry. However, strategy is crucial in this process, because without strategizing the social
media activities, the businesses fail to intrigue their customers (Ratcliff, 2019). This often has to
do with the design and delivery of the message and the contents on social media platforms.

One of the most popular models for explaining social media influence on customers is the AIDA
model. According to Charlesworth (2018), social media platforms are perfect media for creating
brand/product awareness. The social media activities of a business, the contents shared, the
communication and the engagement on social media with its customers create an initial brand
awareness among the customers. The customers also gain brand awareness through reviews and
recommendations from other customers (Castillo, 2018). When this awareness is created, the
customers will move to the next level, that is showing interest towards the brand. In this funnel,
the customers show a general interest towards a particular company, based on what they have
learnt at the awareness phase (Samek, 2017). This interest leads to searching information

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regarding that brand and evaluating that brand with other brands. The outcomes of this phase are
mainly determined by the actual products and service values offered by the companies. When the
interest is satisfied with relevant information and recommendations, the customers would then
show desire towards the brand, and will prompt to make purchase decisions. The desire phase
may be influenced by the company’s responses towards the customer (Sarmaniotis and Wickens,
2014). Finally, the customers make their purchase from the brand, and then their decision will be
influenced by the post purchase interactions with the company.

Figure: AIDA model (Morris, 2009)

With over 70% of the customers using social media to make their purchase decisions, it is quite
necessary for a brand to carefully create awareness among the customers, address customers’
interests, target their desire and satisfy them when they are making purchase and trying to
communicate for relevant purpose (Carter, 2016).

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There are some negative impacts of social media on customers that should be mentioned as well.
Social media platforms, specially Facebook and Twitter, have huge impact on their users. Any
wrong move on social media can be devastating for a brand (AlHarbi, Heavin and Carton, 2016).
For example, a retailer may use a certain promotional message with no ill intents, but if the
customers get any wrong idea from it, or if the customers get offended by the social media
messages conveyed by the company, then it becomes difficult for the brands to recover from the
aftermaths of that (Samek, 2017). However, there is no way to avoid the social media influence.
The best option available for a retailer is to use social media with the best tactics employed, and
capitalize on the social media engagement to draw on more customers.

The research will investigate the issue in more detail and more critically to understand the
dynamics of this impact between the stated research variables.

2.2 Research aim

The aim of the research is to investigate into the impacts of social media on customer purchase
decision by conducting questionnaire survey on a sample group of customers of J Sainsbury and
thus, generating relevant findings through the primary investigation procedures.

2.3 Research questions and objectives

The research objective is to investigate into the impacts of social media on customer purchase
decisions in the retail industry in the UK as the researcher conducts survey on the customers of
Sainsbury London.

The research objective will be addressed by answering the following research questions;

1. How does social media influence customer’s decision to purchase?

This question will be answered by reviewing different theories and literature on social media
marketing and customer behaviours.

2. How does Sainsbury’s social media presence influence its customers to purchase from it?

The research question will be answered through primary data collection and analysis as
discussed under the research methodology chapter.

3. In what extents Sainsbury does better or less than its competitors in social media marketing?

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The research question will be answered through primary data collection and analysis as
discussed under the research methodology chapter.

2.4 Justification and contextualization

The context of this research is to investigate on the retail customer behaviours to see how they
are influenced by social media, specifically concentrating on one particular organisation that is
Sainsbury.

There are already many research papers and articles on the topic of social media influence on
customer behaviours. Many of these research papers also highlight on the retail sector customer
behaviours. From that perspective, this research paper may not seem to add much to the
literature. However, it is important to note that retail sector is one of the most dynamic and
changing industries out there. The customers in the retail sector are influenced by different
factors other than the social media influence. This is why, despite Tesco and Sainsbury, or
ASDA and M&S, having similar level of social media presence, they don’t perform equally in
the retail sector. There is also a significant gap between the perceived influence of social media
on customers and the actual influence of social media on the customers. This is why, an
organisation specific investigation might be more helpful to understand how their customers
specifically react to their social media presence, tactics and the word to mouth effect. That is one
of the reasons which makes this research relevant and significant.

So, it is known that social media has significant impact on the customers’ decision to purchase,
but the extents to which the social media influences the customers is often debatable. There is
also a scope to learn from the social media strategies of Sainsbury to understand what are being
done effectively, and what could be done better. Therefore, it is the focus on the specific
organisation that makes this research separate from other existing research papers.

This research is important from both academic and business perspective. The academic
significance of this research paper is that it will help understand the existing theories of
marketing and customer behaviours in reference to actual market data. The applied research
methods and techniques will be useful for gaining better understanding on how to conduct

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market research effectively. The research experience will have immense benefit for the
researcher as he will be able to put own research skills into practice and show his understanding
of the marketing theories in practical context.

The research is expected to be a potential contribution to the existing literatures. The findings of
the research will shed light on the market dynamics and the literature will be helpful for
understanding the practicality of the social media influence in the retail sector. Thus, the context
of the research is very clear and the research topic is justified.

3. Research Methodology
This research will explore relevant literature and data to investigate the impacts of social media
on customer purchase decisions. Following is a detail explanation of the methodology designed
for the investigation on the given topic.

3.1 Research Philosophy

The research is going to be based on positivism research philosophy. By definition, positivism is
the philosophical theory which states “certain knowledge is based on natural phenomena and
their properties and relations” (Goddard and Melville, 2011). This involves a very structured
methodology for conducting the investigation. The collected information is logically interpreted
and the researcher makes quantitative observations to draw conclusion on the research topic.

To understand the justification of this philosophy in this research, it should be noted that the aim
of the research is to understand how social media generally influences customer purchase
decisions, and not to investigate the individual perceptions regarding the influence of social
media. Therefore, to draw objective findings and conclusions on this matter, positivism
philosophy has been chosen.

3.2 Research approach

The research approach for this investigation is deductive reasoning approach. In deductive
research approach, “the researcher proceeds with the topic of the investigation by developing a
hypothesis (or hypotheses) based on existing theory, and then designing a research strategy to
test the hypothesis” (Kumar, n.d.). This means that the research starts from theory and ends at the

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confirmation of the theories. Hypothesis are generated from the theories and they are then tested
to draw the relevant conclusions.

In this research, the researcher will first look at the relevant marketing theories and consumer
behavior theories to understand the correlation between social media and customer purchase
decisions. The hypothesis will then be tested with quantitative observations. The researcher will
relate the existing theories to understand how the research variables correlate with each other in
actual market context.

3.3 Research strategy

Case study strategy and questionnaire survey strategy will be used for data collection and
analysis. J Sainsbury has been selected as the case organization for this investigation. The
purpose for having the case study strategy is to have a focused approach with this topic.
Sainsbury is a popular retailer in the UK, which has an active social media presence. How their
customers respond to the social media presence of Sainsbury- can be investigated to understand
the general influence of social media on customer behaviours (Kumar, n.d.).

Questionnaire survey is the primary data collection strategy in this research. A sample group of
customers of the London outlets of Sainsbury will be surveyed to get their responses regarding
the impact that social media has on their decisions.

3.4 Research design and methodology

Quantitative investigation will be conducted to get valid and reliable answers to the research
questions. The research has been designed to deliver objective interpretation of the stated issue
(Kumar, n.d.). Quantitative observations provide objective interpretation on a given topic.
Structured questionnaire will be used for the survey to get quantitative responses from the
customers.

The variables for data collection and analysis have been generated from the conceptual
framework derived from the literature review. The questionnaire and the framework for data
analysis will be designed with these research variables.

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3.5 Type of investigation
The nature of this topic makes primary investigation more suitable to address the research
objectives. It is because the customers are the ones using social media platforms and apps for
various purposes including making product or service-related decisions, and also the customers
are the ones selecting a particular product among different brands. Therefore, the best way to
learn about the impacts of social media on customer decisions is to take account of their
voluntary responses regarding the overall issue. Thus, the methodology has been designed
making the Sainsbury customers as the key source of data for this investigation.

The researcher will approach the target population face to face for the questionnaire survey,
aiming to get responses from 100 Sainsbury customers. Convenience sampling method will be
followed to shorten the population. The purpose of following convenience sampling technique is
to stay within the limited time and resources. Since it is not possible to include all Sainsbury
outlets into account, therefore, only three of the largest outlets in London will be visited.

In brief, a sample group of 100 Sainsbury’s customers will be surveyed at the premises of
Sainsbury’s outlets located in Crayford, Wandsworth and Tottenham road.

3.6 Data analysis

The researcher will conduct different statistical analysis on the collected and sorted data, such as
frequency analysis, descriptive statistics calculation, and correlation test. MS Excel will be used
for conducting the statistical analysis. The findings will be then comprehensively illustrated and
compared in reference to the literature review to answer the research questions. Thus, a
structured analysis will be done to draw conclusions on the given subject matter.

3.6 Access and ethics

Since primary data are going to be collected, therefore, the researcher will ensure compliance
with data protection act and academic regulations of primary data research. The customers will
be approached at less busy hours and they will be asked for their voluntary participation. If they
agree, they will sign a consent form to document their voluntary participation in this survey. The
store managers will be asked for permission, and if needed, the higher management of
Sainsbury’s will be approached as well. The research questionnaire will include no question or
statements that may seem offensive to the respondents or may affect the company in any way.

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The researcher will also ensure compliance with the academic regulations and policies relevant
to research papers and reports. Plagiarism will be avoided at all cost and the no other existing
paper will be paraphrased into this task.

3.8 Research limitations

The research outcomes might be affected by data errors since it is a solo project and thus, there
might be errors while handling the data. The research has a narrow scope of learning as it only
focuses on the retail sector. However, the limitations will not affect the research objectives at any
significant extent. The researcher will make sure that the data are properly managed to avoid any
sort of data errors or mistakes.

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Castillo, J. (2018). How interactions influence customer empowerment and satisfaction in the
retail industry. Journal of Business & Retail Management Research, 12(04).

Charlesworth, A. (2018). An introduction to social media marketing.

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Heil, G. and Thomas, C. (2006). Employee management and customer service in the retail
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Kumar, C. (n.d.). Research methodology.

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