Influence of Facebook on Consumer Purchases
The information acquired from social media is not shared between the customers and the sellers, hence leads to commodity information asymmetry; thus, consumers are unable to gain accuracy regarding information for product description. Additionally, after-sales quality ambiguity denotes the difficulties encountered by consumers while predicting the after-sale quality of the products in the future.
Most of the past studies connected to the seller uncertainty are commonly retrieved from the fields of trust studies. Since purchasers are unable to supervise sellers’ behaviors adequately, the buyer to customer e-commerce uncertainty emerges. According to Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Malhotrs (2005), services offered by the sellers will have a direct influence amongst the sellers as well as the satisfaction rate and purchaser’s loyalty. The uncertainty of the sellers can be assessed based on the following aspects; seller morality and service quality uncertainty (Pavlou, Liang, & Xue, 2007). Sellers’ uncertainty denotes the degree of goodwill and seller service in the process of the transaction. The seller’s service value incorporates numerous features, for instance, general perception attributes, higher-order abstraction, and broad dimensions. Consumers use these features to evaluate the value of the service offered by the sellers after shopping. Seller morality, on the other hand, denotes to the willingness of the sellers to provide customers with emotional aid in the purchase process. Based on the trust transfer theory, consumers tend to trust the third-party infomediaries; the third party infomediaries can offer guarantee or certification services to the sellers of the products (Zhang, K. Z., Benyoucef, M., & Zhao, S. J., 2016). An impartial third-party warranty offers a reasonable inspection of the merchants or the products. Also, the third party plays a vital role in protecting the sellers and consumers throughout the buying-purchasing process.
1.5.6 Influence of Facebook on Consumer Purchases
Facebook, as a type of social commerce, has a significant impact on consumer purchases. It allows users from all over the world to share ideas and interact freely. Also, Facebook users can share their experiences about specific events, occurrences, and even about particular products. Facebook denotes a form of social commerce that is “A web-based site which brings different people together in a virtual platform and ensures a deeper social interaction, stronger community, and implementation of cooperation projects.” According to Richard (2014), Facebook is “the online platform that people use to share their ideas, experience, and perspectives and communicate with each other.” Millions of people are using Facebook daily to facilitate the performance of various activities in their lives. Facebook had attained a total of five hundred million active users throughout the world. During 2012, active users had reached a total of nine hundred and fifty-five active users (Duffet, 2015). The extensive use of Facebook throughout the globe has enabled the innovation of new and significant advertising platforms, where various firms can place an advertisement to reach their target customers. The act of Facebook advertisement used by multiple firms plays a critical role in enhancing consumer purchases. Also, Facebook enables firms to reach a particular customer or a specific target group. The increase in the Facebook advertisement is a good indication that Facebook is a vital source of business performance; consequently, firms are taking advantage of Facebook to attain competitive advantage and to gain more customer loyalty (Richard & Guppy, 2014). The advertisements made through Facebook plays a significant role in influencing the customer’s minds and makes them develop a positive attitude towards a particular brand or commodity (Duffett, 2015). As a result of its popularity, more firms are opting to advertise their products through such a platform to influence the customers to buy their commodities. It helps create awareness of a particular brand commodity, which in turn affects the consumers purchasing behaviors.
Various companies such as the HP has opted to use Facebook to facilitate in acquiring the customer’s attention and help survive in the competitive business surroundings (Duffett, 2015). Most of the firms strive to differentiate their services and products to receive huge focus from their consumers; companies ensure that the consumers recognize the differentiated products through advertising on Facebook platforms. In the contemporary world, Facebook advertisements are helping businesses to deliver business messages to a particular group of peoples.
1.5.7 Facebook Advertising
Facebook influences consumer purchasing behaviors through advertisement; also, it enables people with common goals to share comments and ideas in a virtual environment. Facebook advertisement facilitates the customers to share their interests, experience, ideas, and valuable information about a particular commodity. Facebook advertisement plays a significant role in enabling the customers to acquire necessary information regarding specific commodities; consumers can attain demographic information and feedback reviews (Leong et al., 2018). The feedback reviews influence the purchasing behavior of a customer; products with positive reviews are more likely to attract the customers compared to products with few reviews or have negative feedback reviews from the previous customers. Also, Facebook advertising enables the creation of attraction, create a likeness, and enhances the consumer buying behavior positively. Effective Facebook Advertisement facilitates the consumer’s attitude towards purchasing a particular commodity; thus, it pushes the person to develop a purchase intention (Richard & Guppy, 2014). Preferably, consumer purchasing behavior denotes the product’s purchase decision.
Facebook has turned out to be a significant marketing channel meant to reach the targeted market. Based on the two research, “Expand your Brand Community Online” Facebook has played a vital marketing channel meant to reach target customers directly and engage them to purchase a firm commodity. For instance, (German automobile Company) is making use of Facebook to enhance direct interactions with consumers. The free interaction established by the companies through the Facebook platform plays a crucial role in improving consumer purchasing behavior. The Proper Cloth, based in New York, is the other company that influences consumer purchasing behaviors through Facebook. The company has formed a Facebook page where they post information related to their various brands of the cloths (For instance, pictures of the new fashion of the cloths). Also, the company ensures that all the participants receive updates within a short duration on the Facebook page. The act of keeping the consumers always updated about the new brands of the cloths and costs of the cloths has, in turn, facilitated the attraction of more consumers (Richard & Guppy, 2014). This is a good indication that Facebook platforms, as a type of social commerce, influence consumer purchasing behavior positively. According to James and Lukka (2014), Facebook helps the firms market their commodities at a personal level. It has facilitated the marketers to modify their advertisements for a particular group of persons.