Abstract:

As social media grows in popularity, it is seemingly becoming intertwined with online shopping. Marketers tend to turn social media into a platform through which consumers are exposed to all kinds of promotional activities and messages primarily advertisements but also raffle draws, new product introductions, sampling and price reductions in order to increase online purchases. Moreover, today’s social media is evidently the hub of e-word of mouth generated and amplified by consumers and in some cases by marketers, which may lead to an increase in online purchases. Therefore, this study aims to discover if the Internet and social media use encourages growth of e-purchase intention. A large sample of university students completed a questionnaire that assessed their e-purchase intention and their social media use. The results indicate that the users who spend more time on the Internet and social media, and those who check their accounts more frequently are more likely to develop e-purchase intention. In addition to these, the users who follow new product introductions on social media and those who are fun of a particular brand establish a stronger e-purchase intention. The results also show that both the users who purchased more items online and the ones who spent more money online during the last year developed a greater e-purchase intention.

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