Buying Online Through Social Media and Cognitive Dissonance Buying Behavior

Traditional Marketing Is Not Dying It’s Dead

With the advent of Internet and boom of Social media it is now has become an emerging trend that both marketers and consumers use their own websites to create brand communities. A great marketing platform is provided by social media. Now a day’s more and more retailers use social media based marketing and target teens and young adults through its influence. Consumers of various age groups follow a particular brand by its social media websites because of various reasons. The easy availability of Internet throughout the world has enabled the consumers to use social media Example form Email to Facebook and Twitter which has made the Human interaction very easy and it requires no physical meetings. Social networking sites and online communities play a vital role in Social interaction and Information sharing/handling.benifits of using Social media as tool of marketing includes enhanced brand popularity, Strong brand Image, facilitating word-of-mouth communication .all these values results in increased sales and easy information flow in business context which results in generating social support for the consumers. Today, with the Expansion of Social media it is a new topic for researchers that tends to develop a research agenda because ‘‘Social media are likely to develop marketing strategies in firms through thrust building mechanisms, it is also able to affect consumers, create an intention to buy online because buyers can easily interact with the sellers, and find whatever he service they are looking for’’.

Social media act as an important tool in the ‘‘Online Buying Process’’ of consumers. This process is defined as an electronic process that allows consumers to satisfy their needs and meet their purchases by dealing with business people over the internet. Online shopping is growing with faster rate ever than before and this different king of consumers from different targeted segments are getting influenced by this phenomenon, In Pakistan only 30 % people contribute in online buying , The online buying rate here is low because of bad perception, quality of the product ordered online in Pakistan and high product delivery time. All there problem creates dissonance in buying online through social media.

Mostly the adults and teen agers buying online through social media because they spend their free time on internet to use social media sites. Due to spending time on internet they work together with different people at a single place and their likes and dislikes changes due to see different people wearing different manufactured goods. Shopping lovers and business users are frequently buying online. . Shopping lovers are experienced computer users and will likely continue their shopping habits. They also spread the word to others about joys of online buying whenever they have the opportunity. They represent an ideal target for retailers. Business users use the Internet first and foremost for business purposes. They take a serious interest in what they can do for their professional life. They don’t view online shopping as novel and aren’t usually champions of the practice.

Online Insiders are very active users on internet and highly influential online shoppers in using different Social Media to buy and sell. Usually, consumers choices are influenced heavily by online brands and consumers can influence each other. This kind of event usually affects the repurchases process as a result. Therefore, Consumers are increasingly turning to Social Media in order to get more information on which to base their decisions. For instance, it can be noticed that most of the online shoppers tend to be younger, wealthier, better educated, more computer literate and more likely to spend time on internet, and shop online.

There are some dissonance occur in buying online. Security issues are most important dissonance occur in buying through social media. Online shopping may not be safe; they may offer the products at low cost but might collect your card payment and personal details. So avoid doing shopping from websites which are not recognized. Even though if you are doing online shopping from certified websites but from cyber cafe or through public Wi-Fi or through computer which is not virus protected may put you on risk. There is some dissonance of warranty of the product which you buy online and dissonance occurs in exchange the product and also in return policy of the product. Sometimes customer feels difficult to put order on the web portal because customer is not fully aware of the form which requires filling to buy the product.

Online Buying and Perceived Quality

Quite a lot of disciplines have developed a range of perspectives to explain quality. In Operational management, quality is viewed as a conformance to requirements and has been described as a technical specification. In economics, quality is used as one of the competitive strategies for a firm to differentiate and is used to explain coherent customers’ collective behavior. In marketing and organizational studies, individual biases during quality perception processes are highlighted. However, all these studies bear one fundamental assumption: high quality is the superiority meaning innate excellence, unarguably desirable thus always non-arguably being pursued by all customers. This collective pursuance by the customers represents the objectivity of the quality. According to Parasuraman et al. (1988), quality is ‘assessing the superiority.’ And to be superior or to assess advantage, it first needs an objective measure. In fact, a measure itself implies that it has objectivity. Namely, we can derive the objectivity underlying the concept of quality.

Product perceived quality directly influences to purchase online. Customers have some awareness about the product quality, price and styles before going to purchasing the product. After using of product, purchase intention increases as well as decreases, because it has direct relations which affect each other’s. Rust and Oliver (1994) proposed two differences between perceived quality and satisfaction. The customers considered perceived quality as a more precise concept based on product and service features. The company can have a degree of control over quality. So, it is suggested when perceived quality is regarded as overall assessments, then perceived quality is understood as the source of satisfaction.The satisfaction is considered the most important constructs in marketing. The evaluation of product by customer after the use is known as purchase intentions. The behavior is viewed as a key for Predicting consumers’ purchasing behaviors as well as their intentions. Astudy by Ghosh (1990) proved that consumers choose one good but the finally result depends on their intention. According to Aaker (1996) that perceived quality predicts the level for the quality of entire product.Thus perceived quality influence on consumer online buying.

The quality of product is that which satisfies the needs of users which may include different features and it increases the performance of the product. A study by Rao and Raghu Nathan (1997) showed that the product quality is to understand and measure the requirements of the consumers. Satisfaction plays the vital role in marketing because it is a good predictor of purchase behavior. Due to satisfaction dissonance is remove which occur when we think to buy online. Various theories have been developed in an effort to determine the construct and explain satisfaction in different compensation in products/services. Website quality can be seen as the attributes of a website that contribute to its usefulness to consumers. Previous website quality research has identified numerous website quality dimensions, including information quality, ease-of-use, usability, aesthetics, and trust building technologies. When website cannot deliver clear information about product due to this when customer cannot clear about the product which they want to purchase then dissonance of buying occur.One study has assessed the use of website quality to signal company trustworthiness to users of an online bookstore. This study found that information quality was significant to trust for both new and repeat bookstore customers.Quality is considered as a key strategic part of competitive advantage and therefore the enhancement of product or service quality has been a matter of main concern to firms.

Garvin (1987) identifies five approaches to define quality: transcendent, product-based, user-based, manufacturing-based, and value-based. Transcendent definition of quality is synonymous with innate excellence. The assumption of transcendent approach is that quality is both absolute and universally recognizable. Quality of conformance relates to the degree to which a product meets certain design standards. Besides, the value-based definition equates quality with performance at an acceptable price, or alternatively conformance at an acceptable cost. The impact of quality orientation on online purchase intention is well documented in the extant literature.

Ballenger and Korgaonkar (1980) state that recreational shoppers tended to consider quality, variety of product types and pleasant store atmosphere as important factors when choosing stores. In the context of web-shopping environment, Gehrt, et al. (2007) discovered that customers from the shopping enjoyment segment are positively inclined toward recreation, quality, and impulse orientations when making online purchase. Although dissonance occur in online buy is due to give incomplete information, not sure about privacy of customer personal information and dissonance also occur when customer not sure about Quality of the product which they want to buy online.

Compared to physical stores, online stores have many advantages: They are suitable and time saving and no more traveling and waiting in lines is needed. They are open in all time and they are easy to get to anytime and anywhere. These stores provide consumers with free and rich information about products and services. They also have some online tools to help consumers compare and make purchase decisions among various products and services. Hoffman and Novak (1996) indicated that interactivity is the key unique feature between marketing communication on the Internet and traditional mass media. Today online consumers have more control and bargaining power than consumers of physical stores because the Internet offers more interactivities between consumers and product/service providers as well as greater availability of information about products and services. Geissler and Zinkhan (1998) claimed that the Internet shifted the balance of power in favor of consumers as it became very easy for them to make shopping comparisons and evaluate alternatives without being pressured by salespeople. Online stores reduce transaction costs and have advantage for both consumers and vendors.

In online stores customers can’t have any sense about the product they see in the internet (seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and hearing) as they search for and purchase products. In online stores, consumers may develop low trust and perceive elevated risk highly because of the lack of face-to-face communication. Although this difficulty can be reduced by using certain software tools such as the online recommendation agent (Häubl and Murray, 2003; Xiao and Benbasat, 2007) and the online negotiation agent.