The Impact of Using Facebook on Consumers’ Buying Behavior

in online clothing shops.

shafig AL-HADDAD
Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Amman – Jordan, [email protected]
ibrahim AL-HADDAD
Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, [email protected]
mohammad ABUHASHESH
Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Amman – Jordan, [email protected]
jude QAQISH
Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Amman – Jordan, [email protected]
saif YACOUB
Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Amman – Jordan, [email protected]

Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the impact of using Facebook on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops. The main objective of this
research is to better understand Facebook pages’ tools, and how each online clothing
shop influence consumers’ buying behavior. Furthermore, the researchers used a
quantitative approach to collect data through a questionnaire using the online survey
platform that resulted in a total number of 500 responses. The collected data were
analyzed through multiple regressions in which, the results indicate that Facebook has a
significant impact on consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops.
Key words: Consumer behavior, online shopping, Clothing.

1. Introduction
Social media attracted millions of users for many different purposes (Bicep and Caves N. (2011). The
revolution of technology had been growing very fast with the internet representing the successful
technology revolution in the 21 century; the internet has attracted many users around the world, 44% of
the world’s population have already access to the Internet in 2017. Social network sites is being online
services that allow people to create a profile within a bounded system, and connect with other users who
registered with the same website. This allows users to view, share and connect with others within the
same system Boyd and Ellison (2007). Decision-making is a psychological construct, which determines
buying behavior. This means that although a decision cannot be "seen", we can infer from observable
behavior that a decision has been made. These decisions might made using social media. A construction
imputes a commitment to action. Social media is a large and complicated web on the internet. Facebook
has over two billion users, which makes it one of the most social media channels that could reach and
affect the majority of people and their targeted audiences either positively or negatively. Therefore, in this
research, the researchers are investigating consumers’ buying behavior through Facebook featuring online
clothing shops. These pages could either have a positive or negative impact.

The importance of this study is embedded in highlighting the potential of contribution of Facebook in
helping marketers make their decision on whether to use Facebook as a marketing channel or not, in order
to increase the awareness of a product or a service the company is providing and to specify the target
market. Moreover, it could be very important for the company that would like to improve their activities
and performances. Furthermore, getting feedback from consumers using Facebook by likes, comments,
ratings, reviews, and shares will help other customers avoid risks in buying processes.

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 1.1 The statement of the problem
Technology is everywhere and Facebook is a part of it. The research shows the real effect of Facebook on
buying behavior, and the important role it plays on customers' buying behavior.
This research seeks to know whether Facebook is affecting the customer's buying behavior, or not. In
addition to know the real amount of buyers and users on Facebook, to see whether it is really worth to
make offerings for them, to know who is benefiting, and how they are going to be benefited, and what
groups or communities Facebook are focusing on. The research also illustrated the weaknesses of buying
through Facebook, what are these weaknesses? Why they exist if the weaknesses are highly affecting
consumers’ behavior? The solutions and the techniques that used to solve these problems, the strength
points known in order to improve them, to make them more effective. Finally, this study seeks to answer
the following questions:

● What is the impact of using Facebook (likes, comments, share, photos, and reviews) on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops?
● What are the tools used by online clothing shops’ Facebook page to influence consumers’
buying behavior?
● who is the most active segment in using the Facebook in buying

1.2 The research objectives

The objectives of this study are:
● To investigate the impact of using Facebook (likes, comments, share, photos, and reviews) on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops, and how it is affect by gender.
● To understand Facebook pages’ tools for clothing shops and how each shop may use them to
influence consumers’ buying behavior.
● To find out who is the most active segment in using the Facebook in buying.

2. Literature Review
2.1 Facebook
With only 3,000 employees worldwide, Facebook serves four billion pieces of content every day, it
integrated with over seven million websites and applications with valued 100 billion U.S. dollars (Tsotsis
and Zuckerberg, 2011). In 2012, an empirical study conducted by (Wong 2012) illustrated the situation of
small and medium enterprise (SME) owners had switched from individual Facebook users to using
Facebook to uplift their business. Facebook was starting to open its doors to everyone in 2006 (Jasra,
2010).
It is a social media platform, created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004. Facebook was created in order to link
people all over the world by creating personal accounts, which contain a user name and a password that
protect the private information of the users. People all around the world without biases (age, gender,
income, race, etc.) use Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was still a student when he created a website Face
mash, and called “The Facebook” after 6 days of the creation, three of Harvard seniors claimed an
agreement to build a site for them, which developed eventually to become what we call “Facebook”.
H01: There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook (likes, comments, share, photos, and
reviews) on consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05.

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 2.2 Likes
The “like” button allows people to interact with certain posts, pages, or even comments. It can also show
favorable pages to Facebook users. The “like” button has different symbols where users can express their
feelings by reacting on posts such as (love, angry, funny, astonished, and sad). The “like” button may
minimize some of the user’s efforts from commenting on the posts to show their reaction. Liking pages
that have a certain aspect can help people with the same aspect communicate virtually, as the likes and
reactions by anyone on Facebook.
H011: There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “likes” on consumers’ buying
behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05.
2.3 Comments
Comments immediately posted on the Facebook timeline, making it viral and engaging millions to see. It
became very essential for marketers to obtain their business feedbacks from users’ comments. Moreover,
it helps users communicate with people all around the world by sharing their thoughts, experiences, and
feelings.
H012: There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “comments” on consumers’ buying
behavior in online clothing shops at P=0.05.
2.4 Photos
Photos posted on a Facebook account or page. (Xin 2014) mentioned in his study entitled “The impact of
product photo on online consumer purchase intention: an image-processing enabled empirical study”,
consumers prefer product photos with a larger key object, lower entropy on key objects, a warmer color, a
higher contrast, a higher depth-of-field, and more social presences. In addition, delivering product photos
convey emotional messages to customers, emotion considered as one of the five major consumption
values “(functional value, conditional value, social value, emotional value, and epistemic value)” to
explain consumers’ behavior (Sheth J. 1991).
H013: There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “photos” on consumers’ buying
behavior in online clothing shops α ≤ .05.
2.5 Shares
A click button Facebook users utilize to republish photos, information, videos and posts without the need
to retype it again, which reduces time and effort.
1.4 There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “shares” on consumers’ buying behavior
in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05.
2.6 Reviews and rates
Facebook has a star rating system that helps both the business organization and the customer to share
their experience with the firm’s products and services. It could be either a positive or a negative
experience. The star rating system is out of five stars, where people can rate depending on their
experience. Rates and reviews are a practical way to examine the customer’s satisfaction. This helps other
readers discover new businesses, products, and services according to the previous experiences by others.
Facebook reviews have the ability to influence the consumer’s buying behavior by increasing the
credibility and integrity that comes with the brand.
H015: There is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “reviews and ratings” on consumers’
buying behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05.
2.7 Previous studies

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Kakish and AL-Haddad (2018) mentioned in their study entitled “The impact of using social network
sites on entrepreneurial project success”, that the increasing growth of people in social media, and the
power of social media itself, is an important phenomenon to be taken in consideration seriously by
companies. Some business firms try to invest in advertising on social media such as Facebook to increase
the awareness of brands, products, and services. Business organizations do intensive market research on
the needs and want of customers and create a marketing plan according to it, and then, sharing the
sponsor’s message to the right segment. It is a paid way of marketing on social media; the company pays
Facebook to share a certain post to a specific segment of users that the company determines.

(Rehman, et al. 2015) mentioned in their research, entitled “How Facebook Advertising Affects Buying
Behavior of Young Consumers: The Moderating Role of Gender”, the effects of Facebook elements and
posts used in advertisements through Facebook on buying behavior of young consumers. This study used
a quantitative approach to collect data and analyzed through regression. The results of this study indicated
that females influenced by buying online more than males.

Duffett, R. (2015) mentioned in his study entitled “Facebook advertising’s influence on intention-to-
purchase and purchase amongst Millennials” that “Advertising on Facebook has a positive impact on the
behavioral attitudes (intention-to-purchase and purchase).

(Indhumathi, 2014) mentioned in his study entitled, “Effect of Facebook on Purchasing Behavior of
Youth. Facebook is an Inexpensive Platform for Creating Marketing Campaigns”, the impact of Facebook
on the purchasing behavior of youth, and shows which mode of communication is more effective.
Facebook advertising and reviews of friends are more effective than the traditional means of advertising.

Nowadays, Facebook has become an important source of information and communication for customers.
Social networking websites provide a platform for virtual networking where anyone can share pictures,
music, videos, events, activities, reviews about products and brands, etc… The explosive and increasing
usage of Facebook provides a platform for nurturing brands and products. As a result, marketers consider
it as the best platform for advertising their brands. Overall, there are more than 2 billion users on
Facebook. It is the most preferred social networking site among youngsters and it is mostly had used for
being in touch with friends or family members. Reviews of friends have a positive effect on purchasing
decisions of movies, books, articles, and electronic devices. Facebook also helps create more awareness
of products or brands. The study concluded that the youth were the most active segment in purchasing
online.

(Hayta, 2013) mentioned in his study entitled, “The Effect of Social Media on Young Consumers' Buying
Behaviors”, that the internet has penetrated our lives and become an indispensable element with its
advanced technology. The opportunities offered by Web 2.0 technology have increased the time people
spend on the Internet. Today, people can access the internet anywhere and share their ideas and feelings
with their friends at any time. This study shows that Social media has become the preferred internet
application and is the most important communication tool, by the year 2013, more than half of the 2.4
billion internet users have become members and use the services offered by social networks including
Facebook, which has 2 billion users on its own.

A worldwide survey entitled "Global Social Network" showed some statistics about social network users
in 2012. In Europe, there were 518,512,109 users, Asia had 1,076,681,059 users, Africa had 167,335,676
users, North America had 273,785,413 users, and South America has 254,915,745 users. This study
defines the social media concept; websites and applications where users can create and share content,
where it can be used for advertising purposes. It includes Facebook, Friend Feed, Twitter, Flickr, and
blogs, and it shows the importance of social media to all fields in business as they need to strengthen their

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commerce globally rather than in a few countries, that’s why social media is so important for all
businesses. Moreover, this study shows the top five cities with the most Facebook users in the world,
which are Bangkok-Thailand (12,797,500), Jakarta-Indonesia (11,658,760), São Paulo-Brazil
(8,791,700), Istanbul-Turkey (8,325,860), and Mexico-Mexico City (7,743,220). This study also talks
about the consumer’s attitudes and behaviors on Facebook like: consumers prefer to post on their profiles
rather than company profiles. Knowing that consumers search about products/services on Facebook and
social media in general, the business could make a video and provide the information that the consumer
needs (information about the product/service) on social media. Considering that Facebook is one of the
places that consumers communicate with each other, the business can use this opportunity to apply
effective marketing.

3. Methodology
Data collected over a one-month period. Respondents took part through an online survey with an average
time of 5-7 minutes to complete. The total number of responses was 514 and only 500 were usable. The
instrument that used to collect data from the population in this study is a questionnaire; the questionnaire
included tools that measure Facebook factors (likes, comments, share, photos, and reviews) and
consumers’ buying behavior, where as previously mentioned; customer-buying behavior is the dependent
variable, and Facebook is the independent variable. Online questionnaires used to collect primary data
from a large population. The researchers have distributed the questionnaires online which included
different social media websites and applications (like Facebook). The form was designed using an
interval scale (Likert scale) that scaled from strongly disagree to strongly agree represented by numbers
“1” to “5” respectively. An online sampling technique had taken upon the researchers as a sampling
technique in the research due to the use of an online questionnaire only. Furthermore, the researchers had
taken the measurement when the collecting process was done. Females answered 56% of the survey, and
44% of the answers were done by males, which made female representation the higher percentage on the
gender scale. This means that females are more interested than males in buying online.

People aged between (18-24) years old, which is the highest percentage, answered 42% of surveys.
People between 32-38 years old answered people between 25-31 years old answered 34% of surveys,
16% of surveys, and 8% of surveys answered by people between 38 years old, which is the lowest
percentage. This means that 76% of the most interesting segment in buying online is youth (18-34).

3.1 Reliability:
Cronbach Alpha utilized to estimate the reliability of the information gathering instruments and their
internal matchmaking, which can be determined as an internal matchmaking coefficient. The value of
Cronbach’s Alpha must be >0.70 to be agreeable (Sekaran, 2003). The value of Cronbach’s alpha in this
study was (0.826) which is highly reliable.

4. Analysis:

Table 1: regression
Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error
a
1 .727 .529 .491 .454
a. Predictors: (Constant), reviews, Likes, photos, comments, share

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 Table 2: ANOVA
Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
1 Regression 14.367 1 2.873 13.926 .000b
Residual 12.792 498 .206
Total 27.159 499
a. Dependent Variable: Buying Behavior
b. Predictors: (Constant), reviews, Likes, photos, comments, share

Table 3: Coefficients
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig.
1 (Constant) .905 .392 2.309 .024
Likes .015 .073 .021 .203 .840
comments .049 .075 .068 .652 .517
share .274 .073 .395 3.744 .000
photos .052 .085 .062 .610 .544
reviews .321 .076 .445 4.229 .000
a. Dependent Variable: Buying Behavior

The tables above showed that the calculated F value of (13.926) and the statistical significance value of
(0.00) is less than the level of significance (α ≤ .05). Accordingly, the researchers reject the main null
hypothesis and accept the alternative hypothesis. Therefore, there is a statistically significant impact of
using Facebook on consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops. Furthermore, share (sig= 0.00)
and review (sig= 0.00) have an impact of using Facebook on consumers’ buying behavior in online
clothing shops, while likes, comments, and photos, do not have an impact on consumers’ buying behavior
in online clothing shops in Jordan. It concluded that there was a positive impact of using Facebook on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops in Jordan. Moreover, the independent variables by
the correlation coefficient R = 72.7% of the dependent variable.

5. Results
After using SPSS and analyzing the data, the results showed that the youth were the most active segment,
76% of the survey answered by youth (18-24 years) as the previous studies said that youth were the most
effective segment on buying behavior.

For the first main hypothesis, multiple linear regression test was carried out, which yielded an R-value of
0.727, R square=0.529, and 0.00 significance level. As such, the null hypothesis was rejected and the
alternative hypothesis was accepted, which stated that there is a statistically significant impact of using
Facebook (likes, comments, share, photos, and reviews) on consumers’ buying behavior in online
clothing shops.

The analysis showed that the significance of likes is 0.840, which means that the first sub hypothesis was
accepted which stated that there is no statistically significant impact of using Facebook “likes” on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05. The significance of comments is 0.517,
which means that the second sub hypothesis was accepted which stated that there is no statistically
significant impact of using Facebook “comments” on consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing
shops at α ≤ .05. The significance of shares is 0.00, which means that the third sub hypothesis were

6
rejected, and accept the alternative one, which stated that there is a statistically significant impact of using
Facebook “shares” on consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05. The significance
of photos is 0.544, which means that the fourth sub hypothesis was accepted which stated that there is no
statistically significant impact of using Facebook “photos” on consumers’ buying behavior in online
clothing shops at α ≤ .05

The significance of reviews is 0.00, which means that the fifth sub hypothesis was rejected and accept the
alternative one, which stated that there is a statistically significant impact of using Facebook “reviews” on
consumers’ buying behavior in online clothing shops at α ≤ .05

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