The impact of social network marketing on consumer purchase intention in Pakistan : A study on female apparel

Article history: Received: February 3, 2019 Received in revised format: March 10, 2019 Accepted: March 26, 2019 Available online: March 26, 2019 The main objective of this study is to explore and investigate the impact of social network marketing on purchase intention of female’s consumers in fashion apparel and how it is affected by mediating role of brand engagement and consumer motivation. Deductive approach is used to determine the variables influencing purchase intention of female fashion apparel’s consumer. The study is conducted in Karachi, the hub of Pakistan’s economy. A total 150 questionnaires were distributed using random sampling technique among females of Karachi, out of which 127 responded. Data is analyzed using mean, frequencies and standard deviation with the help of SPSS. The study reports that social network marketing was significantly associated with consumer purchase intention. The study further reveals that brand engagement and customer motivation act as a partial mediator on how social network marketing impact on purchase intention of females’ fashion apparels. © 2019 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada


Introduction
Among all industries in Pakistan "Textile industry" is the largest one, as it employs around 25 million.It is the most significant industrial sector of economy as it not only contributes 46% of total manufacturing in Pakistani Industry, employed 40% of industrial workforce but also shares around 10.20% in Pakistan's growth domestic product (GDP).Pakistan comes fourth as cotton producer worldwide, still contributes a small share in exports (The Garment Industry of Pakistan, 2015).However, Pakistan has a huge garment market; middle class is ready to pay high price for durable & high quality apparels (Arifeen, 2017).Apparel industry in Pakistan has gone through many changes from tailor's stitched dress to readymade dresses (Ghani, 2010).Although still most of the sales are accomplished by the physical outlets of fashion brands, at the same time online sale of fashion brands are gaining ground in Pakistan as youth typically prefer e-commerce instead of physical outlets (Arifeen, 2017).The term e-commerce means that a business which is executed electronically, that is exchange of product, services or information.Kuker-Kinney rather simplifies the term and suggests that buying of any good or services on internet are e-commerce (Adnan, 2014).Consumers now can not only seek information but can also share it with other consumers.Yet it can be equally beneficial for marketers as social media has provided them an alternate media to interact directly with individuals (Lee, 2013).This revolutionary two way communication has created ties between marketers and consumers which eventually provides opportunities within trade and commerce (Husnain & Toor, 2017).This modern approach let brands and consumer interconnect with each other, regardless of time and locations.It facilitates two-way communication that is participation of both buyer and seller instead of conventional one-way that was of sellers only (Kim & Ko, 2012).Today's consumer is more lively, participating and manipulative than a submissive one before social media era (Kozinets et al., 2008).In research conducted by Marketing Science Institute (MSI), customer engagement was concluded as the main factor in customer buying decision making process (MSI, 2016).Later on, it was highlighted in researches that consumer engagement is the main driver that eventually helps in building trust, loyalty whose outcomes are in the form of customer satisfaction.In Social Media Marketing (SMM) customer and stakeholders both participate and every participating customer eventually becomes component of marketing department.Social Network Marketing (SNM) as a subset of SMM is the most successful tool of advertising and it enables marketers to initiate bilateral relationship with customers without restriction of time or place (Ahmed, 2015).Correlation between social network marketing and ecommerce of women apparels has not wide been studied yet.However, both of these are interrelated and the aim of this study is examine the way SNM impacts on emotional bond between markets and consumers of fashion apparels of Pakistan.

Theoretical Foundation
Social media consumer buying behavior can be explained with the help of Uses and Gratification theory (U&G theory) (Calder et al., 2009;Hanjun Ko, 2005;Raacke, 2010;Rubin, 2009).Principally U & G theory is used on traditional media to evaluate consumer behavior, however after the arrival of internet and social media platforms the same theory was successfully applied on social media studies (Ngai et al., 2015).Unlike other media theories in which consumers are passive users, it assumes that individuals have supremacy over media usage and they purposely seek out media to fulfill their certain needs like "socializing, relaxation or entertainment" (Learning Theories, 2016).
Few years back, online shopping was unheard in Pakistan, people used to spend hours while doing traditional shopping.Although late entrant, internet is flourishing quickly in Pakistan, there are almost 30 Million internet users in Pakistan, among them e-commerce is amounted to $30 million (Weekly Technology Times, 2016).Largest market share 20% goes to electronic and mobile sector, 18% to service sector, 10% to auto and computer accessories, 7% men's fashion clothing and women apparels amounting to 6% of e-commerce share in Pakistan (CISION PR Newswire, 2016).It is observed that most of times women's online shopping is more related to fashion, although they prefer to shop physically but online is most convenient and one-stop solution.Women, mostly working women opt toward it, as it not only saves their energy but also saves their time (The Express Tribune, 2018).Now trend is changing gradually, people are heading towards online shopping which is easier as we can search product/service by one simple click.Almost all Pakistani apparel brands now have their e-stores to spread information of their existing and upcoming apparels.Online customers are more careful while doing buying; they evaluate the product by reading related internet blogs, online reviews and experiences of others (Shakeel, 2016).According to Ecommerce Report 2015 ratio of women VS men online shopper is 30:70 ratio which is quite low, there can be multiple reasons as for women word of mouth plays strong role, for friends' experience will count more than any promotion by the brand (Times of Islamabad, 2016).With such high profitable market share waiting, Fashion apparels should know how to build trust through internet and cater their potential customers need (Weekly Technology Times, 2016).Many prior researches has explained the consumers use specific social medias for "status seeking, information hunting, socializing, and entertainment" (Dunne et al., 2010;Lee & Ma, 2012;Husnain et al., 2016;Khan, 2016;Oliveira, Huertas, & Lin, 2016;Wang et al., 2016).Social media is highly interactive platform which let individuals and communities talk about and share user's content (Kietzmann et al., 2011).Business organization can use this platform as strategic tool for their business marketing (Weinberg, 2009).It is essential to find out how social media plays its role in consumer purchase and marketing of products and services (Husnain & Toor, 2017).All over the world organizations, whether Small or large, are well aware of usefulness of social media and that is why they use Twitter to tweet, Facebook to form fan pages and YouTube to post videos (Weinberg, 2009).In Pakistan top 5 industries on Facebook are Fashion, Telecom, Ecommerce, Retailand Service.Among these, fashion industry is on top with sum of 19,724,721 fans.But when it comes about top 5 brands by number of interaction on Facebook, two women fashion apparel brands namely "Sapphire" and "Sana Safinaz" come on 3 rd and 5 th consecutively (March 2018Social Marketing Report Pakistan, 2018).Whereas almost all top women fashion apparels brands like Khaadi, Gul Ahmed, Satrangii, Junaid Jamshed, Saphire, Generation, Styloetc have their own e-stores (Weekly Technology Times, 2016).It is important for the researchers to determine the influence of social media on arousing "consumer purchase" and "success of the products or services" (Smith, 2011).

Social Media and Social Network Marketing
Arrival of social media has entirely changed the way companies once interacted with their customers.Social media is not only a fast technology but it is more convenient and effective for customers as they are more vocal, active and can broadcast to almost any corner of the world (Kahle & Valette-Florence, 2014).Social media is beneficial for both the parties i.e. customers and firms as they use this platform to gather the info.Designers can get benefited from "400 million face book and more than 22 million twitter users" in order to strengthen their marketing capabilities which cannot be accomplish from their advertising budget (Ahmad et al., 2015).Diane Hessan, the CEO of communispce mentioned "Customer are screaming to be more engage with the companies that affect their lives," and this happens due to entrance of social media in our lives.Marketer has the capability to use these platforms in order to take advantage of advertisement to its fullest potential, they can make advertisement as per needs and preference of consumers (Schlosser et al., 2006;Shao, 2009).In Pakistan most of internet users are applying social media like Facebook, twitter and Instagram (Yusufzai, 2016).Although Pakistan is at same level in social media usage as other countries, very few researches are executed on social media and social network influence on consumer purchase.

Consumer purchase intention
Consumers have abundent options in todays' market and have to cope up with the bombarded overloaded information and make decisions.Purchase intention is defined as the possibility of consumer in purchasing product or service in the near future (Price et al., 1980;Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980).It is proven in previous studies of marketing and advertising that consumer purchase intention take place at the stage of decision making process, it is the stage where consumer developed "willingness to proceed towards product or brand" (Dodds et al., 1991;Wells et al., 2011).Trends are getting changed, as online marketers have no or very low control on entities such as "peer reviews, referrals, blogs and social networks" which are sources that help in making customer's preference and decision making.These all user-generated contents involved their personal experiences based on taste and prejudice that gives trust to the consumer to initiate purchasing decision (Silverman, 2001).It is also noted by Banoon that approximately more than a quarter of social media users admitted that they do look at the ads share by one of their social connections (Lee, 2013).It is mentioned in a research that social media has extended the purchase "funnel" in a way that post purchase conversation now build by WOM and contents shared/create by user.

Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is "an emotional connection between a company and its customers" based on the interaction and participation.The main component to customer enagagement is "knowledge exchange" where communicaton techonolgies provide for the marketers to get engaged with their customers (SD Vivek, 2012).The Empathica Consumer Insights Panel surveyed about the role social media play in US consumers shopping decision.More than half of consumer claimed they have "liked" the brand's FB page, moreover 73% claimed that their current visit is an influence of social networking site (Dugan, 2012).It is pointed out in a research by Smith and Zook (2011) and Zook (2011) that social network marketing has changed the traditional way of shopping that is C2B.Now customers are capable enough to access product related information by getting information and feedback at the same time.They talk each other (C2C) to share experience, at the same time they contact company (C2B) for the required information (Smith, 2011).

Social Network Marketing and Consumer Purchase Intention
It is important to note that about 70% of customers use these platforms to gather information related to product or brands and 60% use it to transfer the data (Kirtiş & Karahan, 2011).Nasir et al. (2012) studied "how social media influences purchasing behavior on Pakistani women".It is concluded in more researches that SNM provide huge opportunity for the brands to accomplish the main goal of "relationship marketing" helps convincing the customer to buy the product or services.Interestingly only few customers share their experiences at these social networking sites, most of social networking users do read the reviews and comments of the customers while making their purchase decisions (Johnson et al., 2012).It was concluded in their study that Pakistani women consider WOM more authentic than brand advertisement of apparels.In a research conducted by Google (2012) in "U.K, U.S, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, and Brazil" related to online customer drive towards purchase, it was concluded that social media serve as supportive channel in building awareness and purchase intent.SNM has made possible the speedy delivery offers which are one the reason that can cause an increased purchase intention (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011).

Social Network Marketing and Consumer Engagement
Social media brings a revolutionary change in a way that it not only supports customers to collect unbaised product range information but also allows them to talk to the experienced customers before making purchase decision (Lee, 2013).According to Lee (2013) "Blooming trends like blogging, online communities, flash mobbing, buzz agents, and MySpace show that customers have a lot to say -they want to be asked and they want to be involved".More importantly consumers nowadays use social media to go through review blogs, ratings and friends like dislike (Ahmad et al., 2015).Social networking performs well via social media sites that allows users "to share, interact and communicate with others users of the sane site" (Kaplan &Haenlein, 2010).The primary purpose of marketer is to use this platform to let people talk about their positive experinces and spread these contents amongst the communities (Lee, 2013).These days companies have the opportunity to use social media not just as aplatform for brand promotion but to get engange with the customer (Forbes, 2015).This kind of interaction between customer and employer will creat an engagement which if handled professionally by the employer will lead to exciting long period of time H2: Pakistani female apparel's Social network marketing has a positive impact on consumer engagement.

Consumer Engagement and Consumer Purchase Intention
The Empathica Consumer Insights Panel surveyed the role social media plays in US consumers shopping decision.More than half of consumer claimed they have "liked" the brand's FB page; moreover 73% claimed that their current visit is an influence of social networking site (Dugan, 2012).Moreover Gallup states that these engaged customers are the ones who are not only "satisfies or loyal" but are emotionally attached customers to the brand (Gallup Consulting, 2010).Consumer engagement plays an important role in purchase decision process, it facilitates building an emotional bond between the customer and the brand, which enables the brands to convince customers to purchase their brands (Barhemmati & Ahmad, 2015).Consumer engagement incase are performed a proper and efficient way, it has the capacity to genuinely influence purchasing behavior of customers (Areeba Toor, 2017).
H3: Consumer Engagement of Pakistani female apparel's has a positive impact on consumer purchase Intention.

Mediation of Consumer engagement
Social networking sites nowadays are more interactive and eventually helps in creating emotional attachment which results in provoking their purchase behavior.This emotional attachment on return boosts consumer loyalty that makes social networking sites consumer to promote the brand and their product with other consumers on this platform (van Asperen et al., 2018).Based on previous researches it is predicted that consumer engagement act as mediating variable during the purchase (Barhemmati & Ahmad, 2015).In that regard, the hypothesis is formulated as follows, H4: Consumer engagement of female apparel mediates the relationship between social network marketing and consumer purchase intention.
In the existence of previous literature we come up with the following conceptual framework.

Methodology
The study has adopted both descriptive as well as inferential research design.Quantitative research type is used.Online questionnaire is created using Google form to test the developed theoretical framework and the hypotheses.Google forms are not only easy to create but also can be distributed and submitted easily.Data is collected for once, so research adopted cross sectional data (Bell, 2007).Deductive approach is adopted as "theory and hypothesis are developed and research strategy is designed to test the hypothesis" (Saunder, 2011).
In this study we distributed 200 questionnaires among the female social media users (above the age bracket of 18 years) from which we received around 129 successful responses.We have gathered the data from social media users resided in Karachi, using convenience probability technique.We have collected information from a research agency, according to the report (Pakistan Social Media Stats 2018, 2018) there are 35 million active social media users out of which most of them are face book users (92%) which is getting increased by 17% annually in 2017.23% FB profiles were identified as female's where as 77% as male's.Total FB users of Karachi are 4.75 millions (Qureshi, 2016).The summary of the constructs adopted in this study is presented in Table 1.

Fig. 1. Personal characteristics of the participants
To measure the reliability of the constructs, Pilot testing has been carried out on 28 respondents and Cronbach's alpha was equal to 0.945 and on the basis of reliability analysis result the questionnaire is considered valid for conducting research survey.

Result
This section covers the result of discussion of "Descriptive Analysis, Reliability Analysis, Correlation and Regression Analysis".

Multivariate model
The proposed study uses the following regression analysis to examine different hypotheses of the survey.
Univariate normality is calculated by Kurtosis and Skewness analysis, the summarized results are mentioned below in Table 2.   2, that all the constructs fall within the range of ±1.96 which proves the normality of the data.Cronbach's Alpha is used for examining the internal reliability of the research constructs.The results are illustrated in Table 3. Table 3 shows the results of Alpha values that deviate between α =0.834 and α= 0.92.Consumer Engagement with (α=.834,Mean=2.753,SD=0.25)has the lowest reliability, while Consumer Purchase Intention with (α=.92,Mean=2.543,SD= 0.114) has the highest reliability.Since all the above alpha values are greater than 0.7, it indicates acceptable reliability (Dessart et al., 2015).To ensure the uniqueness of all constructs Correlation analysis is carried out.Results are illustrated in As it is witnessed from the results that all of the constructs fall within the ranges of .30and .90which specify that there is no multi-collinearity and all the "constructs adopted are unique".Linear regression analysis is used to calculate the effect of Consumer Engagement on Social Network Marketing and the results are summarized in Table 5.  Linear regression analysis is used to calculate the effect of Consumer Engagement on Consumer Purchasing Intention and Table 7 shows the results.

Testing Mediation
This research is also testing the mediating effect of consumer engagement of female's apparel on relationship of female apparels social network sites with their purchase intention.Baron and Kenny (1986) mentioned a method which included four-step approach.Primarily, the path among the independent variable and dependent variable must be significant.Next, the path among the independent variable and mediator should be significant.Subsequently, the path among the mediator and the dependent variable should also be significant.Lastly, the path among the independent and dependent variable should be significantly reduced when the mediator is added.As specified in Table 8, social network marketing of female apparels is notably related to the female's consumer purchase intention, satisfying the initial condition.Secondly, Table 7 is specifying the effect of social network marketing of female apparels on female consumer engagement point out a significant relationship, implying that the second condition is met.Additionally, as specified in Table 8 the female's consumer purchase intention also has a significant relationship with consumer engagement of females' apparels, so, fulfilling the third situation also.And the final fourth step is to include the mediator consumer engagement into the model so as to examine whether it reduces the effect.Lastly the result of mediating effect on social network marketing and purchase intention is significant.R square value is increased to 0.73.It is specified in Table 8 that the beta value of predictor social network marketing reduces from 0.681 to 0.438, so the results specify that consumer engagement act as a partial mediator and that supported H4.

Discussion
This study was based on "User Gratification Theory" which examines the association among Social network marketing of female's apparel brand, female consumer's engagement and their purchase intention.
As it is apparent from the results, that "female consumer engagement" on social network acts as an important factor in provoking purchase intention among the females consumer of social network.This mediating role of "consumer engagement" can be beneficial for the Pakistani females brand apparels, as they can use social network marketing as a marketing tool to let the consumer engaged which eventually can boost their purchase intention.The finding indicates that in Pakistani consumer of female apparels can get influenced by online word of mouth by using Social network marketing platform.It has also figure out that Pakistani social networking user used this platform not only to gain knowledge about their brand but also to share with others.The results of this research was supported by the previous studies (Heller Baird & Parasnis, 2011;Dehghani & Tumer, 2015;Bilal et al., 2014).The results of the study have confirmed that social network marketing of females apparel brand interrelated with their female consumer engagement was also supported by the previous studies (Barhemmati & Ahmad, 2015;VanMeter et al., 2013).Finding of this study reveals that Pakistani female social media platform users are more likely to attach with the female brand apparel companies (VanMeter et al., 2013).It is therefore concluded that social network marketing of female brand apparel has the capability to engage their female consumers along with useful feedback about the brand.The study has revealed that female consumer engagement was interrelated with female consumer purchase intention in spite of few bad experiences and it is also supported by previous studies (Rosetta, 2014).Moreover, the findings reveal the mediating effect of females' consumer engagement on females' consumer purchase intention can be strategically used by the Pakistani female apparel brand to boost their sales (Areeba Toor, 2017).

Conclusion
As we know, Pakistan is amongst the countries in which social media usage is growing at fast pace.The results of this research reveal that the impact of female apparels brand social network marketing not only helps consumers share their experiences and gather information but also provoke female consumer's purchase intention by getting them engaged.In other words, Pakistani brands especially female apparel brand can use social network marketing as a marketing tool.Moreover, unlike the prior studies this research has categorically been performed to study how modern technology can impact business trend in Pakistani female brand apparels.

Table 1
Constructs Adopted

Table 2
Descriptive Statistics

Table 5
Regression Analysis of Social Network Marketing on Consumer Purchase IntentionThe results show that the predictors of the Social Network Marketing explains.681ofthevarianceF =108, p=0< 0.05.Here R-square value shows that Social Network Marketing has moderating effect on Consumer Purchase Intention.Moreover, Consumer Purchase Intention is getting significantly influence by Social Network Marketing (ß = .649,p<.05).The developed model explains the Consumer Engagement influence on Social Network Marketing, which is apparent form the regression equation mentioned below: Consumer Purchase Intention= .750+.748*SocialNetworkMarketing +0.181 Linear regression analysis is used to calculate the effect of Social Network Marketing on Consumer Engagement and the results are presented in Table6as follows.

Table 6
Regression Analysis of Social Network Marketing on Consumer EngagementThe result shows that the predictors of Social Network Marketing explains .676 of the variance F =105, p=0< 0.05.Here R square value shows that Social Network Marketing has moderating effect on Consumer Engagement.Moreover, Consumer Engagement is getting significantly influence by Social Network Marketing (ß = .704,p<.05).The developed model explains the Social Network Marketing influence on Consumer Engagement, which is apparent form the regression equation mentioned below:

Table 7
Regression Analysis of Consumer Engagement on Consumer Purchasing IntentionThe results show that the predictors of Consumer Engagement explains .656 of the variance F =94, p=0< 0.05.Here R square value shows that Consumer Engagement has moderating effect on Consumer Purchase Intention.Moreover, Consumer Purchase Intention is getting significantly influenced by Consumer Engagement (ß = .656,p<.05).The developed model explains the Consumer Purchase Intention influences on Consumer Engagement, which is apparent form the regression equation mentioned below:

Table 8
Testing Mediating effect of Consumer Engagement on Consumer Purchasing Intention