Luận văn thạc sĩ the impact of social networking integration service of online retailer on consummers puchase intent, the case of hochiminh city, vietnam

International School of Business --- Lê Thoại Bảo Trân THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL NETWORKING INTEGRATION SERVICE OF ONLINE RETAILER ON CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENT: THE CASE OF HOCHIMINH C

International School of Business

-

Lê Thoại Bảo Trân

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL

International School of Business

-

Lê Thoại Bảo Trân

THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL

NETWORKING INTEGRATION

SERVICE OF ONLINE RETAILER ON CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE INTENT: THE CASE OF HOCHIMINH CITY,

To complete this Master of Business Administration associated between Western Sydney University and University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city with the thesis “The impact of social networking integration service of online retailer on consumers’ purchase intent – the case of Hochiminh city, Viet Nam”, beside exerting myself during last time, firstly, I want to thank deeply to my family that always encouraged me throughout studying process and finishing this thesis

Secondly, I also want to give my gratefulness to Professors and lecturers from University of Economics Ho Chi Minh city They provided to us useful knowledge and also highly valuable experiences within two years Especially, I really want to express heartfelt thanks to Dr Pham Phu Quoc guided me enthusiastically to accomplish the thesis

ABSTRACT

The growth of social networks integration service around the world has created a new place of interaction and communication among people Web-based social communities, weblogs, online social networks provide features, allow consumers to share their personal experiences, knowledge, opinion with one other by writing reviews, rating reviews, and chatting among trusting members

This study empirically explores how the social networking integration service of online retailers (Facebook shops) impact on consumers’ purchase intent Formal quantitative research through survey questionnaire with a sample of 219 consumers who are living and working in Hochiminh city, the result reveal that Website social presence, trust and involvement have positive impact on consumers’ purchase intent Implications of these finding for e-retailers and future research are outlined

Key words: Website social presence, trust, product attitude, involvement, purchase intent

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research gap 2

1.3 Research objectives 3

1.4 Research methodology and research scope 4

1.5 Research contribution 4

1.6 Research structure 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6

2.1 Online shopping and social networking services (Facebook case) 6

2.2 Consumers’ purchase intent 9

2.2.1 Consumer behavior 9

2.2.2 Step of a intention process 10

2.2.3 The impact of online social networks on consumers’ purchase intent 11

2.3 Website social presence 12

2.4 Trust 13

2.5 Involvement 14

2.7 The conceptual model and hypotheses of the research 16

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

3.1 Research process 18

3.2 Sample design 19

3.2.1 Population 20

3.2.2 Sample size 20

3.3 Data collection procedure 21

3.4 Measurement scale 22

3.5 Questionnaire design 24

3.6 Data analysis method 26

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 27

4.1 Descriptive analysis – demographics and variables 27

4.2 Reliability Analysis 28

4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) 30

4.4 Regression Analysis 33

4.4.1 Testing assumption of multiple regressions 33

4.4.2 Result of multiple regression analysis 35

4.5 Hypotheses testing result and discussion of the findings 37

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 42

5.1 Conclusion 42

5.3 Limitations and future research 45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES 52

Figure 2.1: A theoretical model 17

Figure 3.1: Research Process 18

Figure E1: Histogram of Purchase intent 61

Figure E2: Normal Plot of Purchase intent 61

Figure E3: Scatter Plot of Purchase intent 62

Table 3.1 Source of data collection 21

Table 3.2 Source of measurement scale 22

Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristics 28

Table 4.2 Reliability test result 29

Table 4.3 Rotated component matrix (time 1) 30

Table 4.4 KMO and Bartlett’s test result 31

Table 4.5 Rotated component matrix (time 2) 32

Table 4.6 Correlations matrix 35

Table 4.7 Model Summary of multiple regression analysis 36

Table 4.8 ANOVA of multiple regression analysis 36

Table 4.9 Coefficients of multiple regression analysis 37

Table 4.10 Summary of hypotheses testing results 40

Table D1: Total Variance Explained of factor analysis 60

Table D2: Model Summary of multiple regression analysis 62

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background

Internet is a social place where created new forum for customers Virtual communities, blog, and online social networking sites provide a platform to influence consumers‟ purchase intents (OTX research, 2008) For more information, Hitwise (2011) indicates that the market share of different online social networking websites has been grown Online retailers have recently taken care about potential objective of understanding and leveraging social influence

in customers‟ purchase intent to improve customer relationship management and increase sales Therefore, nowadays, we can find that lot of online retailers have begun to connect their websites with social networking sites, such as online shops in Facebook or Facebook shops

Facebook.com is one of the most popular social networking sites in the world and in Vietnam also There are 19.6 million Facebook users in Vietnam by August 2013, accounting for 21.42 percent of the population and 71.4 percent of Internet users By July 2013, Vietnam

is the country ranked 16th in the world for percentage growth of Facebookers These impressive numbers in the results of the study Socialbakers & SocialTimes.Me (2013) is announced at the 18th workshop Panorama ICT Vietnam - VIO place in Hochiminh city Socialbakers study (2013) also points out the growing trend on Facebook in Vietnam Hence, Facebook is suitable place for retailers; they can open online shops to do business efficiently

There are many applications and in Vietnam website allows retailers to build an online shop quickly When using the shops on Facebook, they absolutely do not need to worry about their shops will be destroyed when the user overload or fault of the network service providers However, Facebook does not support creating a direct online shop, which

is only possible through the application or interact with the Facebook iframe According to Schiffman, Kamk & Hansen (2008), diverse ranges of people have influence on consumers such as family members, friends, co-workers, and group or individual that consumers would like to compare themselves with them The members of Facebook can design their profiles and share information with other individual within the group Group that may never meet in the physical world but nevertheless they are able to affect purchase intents (Evans, Jamal & Foxall, 2009)

This online social network is good place for consumers to get information and give advices In order to reduce the risk of buying a new product, many cosumers tend to search the opinion of early adopters before making purchase intent The use of social networks in online shopping provides marketers and business with the new revenue opportunities, while providing consumers with product information and both economic and social rewards for sharing (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh & Gremler, 2004)

As Vietnamese people still have a habit of trust when they can prehensile and viewing goods The purchase intents are often influenced by people who the consumer knows and trust However, since internet thriving and the time is more valuable, the e-business in developing economics like Vietnam need to develop more utility shopping for customers No-one denies the performance of utility online shopping model Therefore, the retailer shops

direct-in Facebook are more and more popular particularly direct-in Vietnam, especially direct-in big city as Hochiminh city

1.2 Research gap

In the literature, many studies about online shopping environment have been researched (Hassanein & Head, 2006; Hsu & Tsou, 2011; Huang & Chou & Lin, 2010)

However, very few scholars do the research about social networking integration service of online shops For instance, the research of Wu & Lee (2012) studies about the effect of blog Trust, involvement and product attitude on purchase intention in Taiwan On the other hand, Hassanein & Head (2006) consider about Perceived social presence and its impact on attitude toward online shopping These factors could play an important role in the online environment, but did not investigate how these key factors impact on purchase intent of online consumers

in Facebook Thus, in order to fulfill such gap, this research address key factors through a detailed study of the world‟s largest social networks on Facebook, in specifically of online shopping in Hochiminh city, Vietnam Moreover, the motivation of this study also derives from the lack of studies in terms of online shopping in Facebook in Vietnam

Online shops in Facebook, the social networking integration service in Vietnam is pretty new, but we can see so many social plug-in was integrated by online shopping which can make the users to share the products to their online social networks easily, by not so many people really have the experience of using the service Considering the enormous potential of this market, this study aims to investigate and develop the research of the influences of Trust, involvement, website social presence and product attitude on consumers‟ purchase intent towards online shops in Facebook In addition, this study expands the general understanding of the perceptions of social networking integration service, understands one of the fundamental interests of e-commerce is how social networks are used and how they shape purchase intents

1.3 Research objectives

The purpose of this study is to examine the key factors associated with consumers‟ purchase intent towards online shops in Facebook Specifically, this research investigates:

- The relationship between trust and purchase intent

- The relationship between involvement and purchase intent

- The relationship between product attitude and purchase intent

1.4 Research methodology and research scope:

This study uses questionnaire to collect data The survey questionnaire is gotten from credit sources and developed in English and then translate into Vietnamese In order to make clear of the Vietnamese version questionnaire, the in-depth interviewof five people are conducted before the survey is implemented in mass Then the analyzing of the collected data are processed by SPSS software with three main stages First, Cronbach‟s Alpha is used to test the reliability of the measurement scale Then, the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) is used to check the validity of the measurement scale Finally, multiple regression are

employed to investigate the relationship between factors in the research model

This study choses Hochiminh city in Vietnam to examine the online shops in Facebook since Hochiminh city is the big city in Vietnam and is the potential market for study this research The respondents of this study are the people who live in Hochiminh city and know or have experience in online shopping in Facebook

deep research about the key factors impact on consumers‟ purchase intent toward online shopping in Facebook can help the managers get more success in e-commerce applications

In summary, this study suggests some useful theoretical contribution and practical contrubution for business people who want to enter market, to who would like to improve customer relationship management, get more loyalty of consumers and increase sales

1.6 Research structure

The thesis contents are divided into 5 chapters

Chapter one is general Introduction and outlines the content of this study This chapter presents the background of the research, motivation for doing the research, research objective, research methodology and scope

Chapter two is literature review of five concepts including website social presence, trust, product attitude, involvement and purchase intent This chapter also proposes the research model and hypotheses

Chapter three shows the research methodology for testing the research model

Chapter four shows the analysis of result research

Finally, chapter five discusses the conclusions of the study‟s findings, suggests some solutions for developing online shopping in Facebook for now and in the future and finally points out the limitation of this study

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mainly presents the theories, which are derived from many scholars in academic field about each factor in the research model Firstly, social networking integration services are introduced to clarify the online shopping in Facebook definition In addition, the study introduces more about the online word of mount communication as a part of social networks, consumers‟ purchase behavior and their roles influence to purchase intent Second, the literature review of each constructs, including website social presence, trust, product attitude and involvement are discussed respectively Finally, research model and relationship hypothesize between these constructs are proposed and discussed

2.1 Online shopping and social networking services (Facebook case)

Nowadays, most offline retailers have set up online retail shops directly or by parties to increase revenues We can find that lots of online retailers have begun to connect their websites with social networks, like Facebook

third-A social networking service (SNS) is an online service that focuses on establishing and reflecting social networks or social interaction between families, friends, and also for gaining new friends over the internet These networks often include such services as e-mail and instant messaging SNS users can share their favorites, and habits in physical life on social networks, and personal pages can represent each of them through profile, social links The rich of personal profile and personal social network, the most valuable asset of social network services carry out

Social networking integration means to connect your website with online networks so that you can use your user‟s “social graph” in their online social network to connect their activities with their online network friends This service is provided by social network sites;

they open parts of their database, and allow others to develop an application to connect with the network

In addition, Solomon (2010) find that online social networks change the way we think about marketing, companies and consumers have direct interaction and relationship with one another There are different forms of virtual communities that affect consumers‟ purchase intent in different ways (Solomon, et al, 2010):

 Multi-user dungeons (MUD): where people have social relationship with each other in terms of game playing

 Room, ring, and lists: rooms (chat rooms), rings (organizations that is related to the home pages), and list (group of individuals that sharing information via email)

 Board: online communities, which can be related to music, movies, cars, even restaurants that allow individuals post messages

 Blogs: weblogs or blogs are personal journals and are form of online communities that growing dramatically fast Users of general interest can follow blogs

The most users of virtual communities are finding friends or exchanging information, opinions, and experiences on their common interests (Ridings & Gefen, 2004) Virtual communities can help consumers to find information about specific company, product, and service Online social networks have become more trustworthy and relevant information source than direct information from companies, thus consumers enjoy the interaction and communication with each other and like to receive advice either positive or negative about different products services on online social networks

The growth of online participation and discussion has made consumers to impact the products and brands (Riegner, 2007) The research of Riegner has been shown online users spent 27 percent of their time on communication activities, such as social networking sites,

blog, email, and also 27 percent for leisure and entertainment which is more than the time they spent together read news and personal activities

According to Shin, Park & Ju (2012), the integration tools of Facebook have some common characteristics: (1) The convenience feature are for easy to use and share, example the “like” option let you share your favorite things by one click, and the “registration” plug-in let you login to the website with simple registration process, just use Facebook ID to login to multiple websites (2) The surveillance feature, such as “Facepile” and “Login” button allows you log in your Facebook in the website, and to monitor who liked your page or did some activities in your pages, it displays and shares the related activities and interest of stranger (3) Personalization feature connect your activities with your friends, such as

“Recommendation” plug-in let users who use the Facebook ID login to the website to get some recommendations based on the user‟s Facebook profile

In addition, the study introduces more about the online word of mount communication

as a part of social networks to make clear about the sense of sociability in website, instead of the sense of sociability in traditional market Silverman (2001) indicates that word-of-mouth (WOM) in traditional communication theory considers as processing strongly influence on consumers‟ purchase intent behavior in every steps especially information search, evaluative

of alternative and product choice Recently research of Huang, Boh & Goh (2011) find that social influences for instance WOW can change people‟s feeling, actions, opinions, or behaviors Moreover, the positive WOM is more effective than negative WOM and it depends on relationship between consumers (East, at el., 2008) Online word-of-mouth communication is through online social networking sites, blogs, online discussion forums, virtual communities (Goldsmith, 2006) The previous research by Li, Bernoff, Pflaum & Glass (2007), 50 percent of adult of users of online social networks share and tell about the product that they like Brown, et al (2007) points out the online communities are flexible,

and based on a wide range of cultural and social interests Word-of-mouth communication is

a main part of online communication where consumers exchange and share their knowledge, opinion, and experience and has an impact on consumers‟ purchase intents In addition, online word-of-mouth communication is cheaper, faster, and more effective than the other marketing tools (Dellarocas, 2003) Many consumers check other consumers‟ recommendations before making any purchase intent especially when it comes to buy new products

2.2 Consumer’s purchase intent

Purchase intent can be used to predict actual purchase behavior (Morrison, 1979) In this study, purchase intent is defined as consumers‟ intention to purchase products from the firms in the future

Before investigate the impact of social networks on purchase intent, the study introduces more about the consumers‟ purchase behavior, the steps of an intention process and their roles influence to purchase intent

2.2.1 Consumer behavior

Consumer behavior is defined as “the study of the process involved when individuals

or group select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires.” (Solomon et al., 2010, p6)

Another definition of consumer behavior of Bennett (1989) is “the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behavior, and environmental events by which human being conduct the exchange aspects of their lives”

Study of consumer behavior of Lantos (2011) indicates one of the important aspects

of consumer behavior is market segmentation, the customer within the segment are more or

less similar in term of products needs and desires In addition, Solomon, et al (2010) finds out market segmentation consists of variously categories for instance demographics (age, gender, social class), geographic (region, country difference), psychographic (personality, life style) and behavioral (brand loyalty, benefit desire) Every people make numerous intentions

in their daily life, the physical and social environment have large influences on consumers‟ purchase intent

2.2.2 Steps of a intention process

The central part of consumer behavior is consumer‟s intention making An intention process involves in several steps, including problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternative; purchase intent; post-purchase evaluation (Kardes, Cronley & Cline, 2011)

When consumer has a desire for something new, problem recognition is the first step

of consumers‟ purchase intent process (Kardes, et al 2011) Consumers‟ purchase intents begin with the result of problems or a single problem Hawkins and Motherbaugh (2010) consider about different factors that impact to problem recognition step such as social factors, cultural factors, reference group, and environmental factors

Once a problem is recognized, consumers begin to seek about relevant information, about internal and external information search According Kardes et al., the internal search involves the consumers‟ memory about the products, and external search includes word of mouth, shops visit, trial and online social networking and social media Nowadays, the internet search tool development, online environment effectively involves in purchase intent process

When find out the full information sources, consumers start to compare and evaluate several alternative in terms of products features and their desires and needs In this stage

consumers consider which alternative would be the best to fulfill their need (Blyth, 2008) There are different type of consumers‟ choice, sometimes consumers‟ choices are based on simple intention such as buy the cheapest products, but there are some intentions that are complex and consist of different process and stages

Once consumers have found their relevant alternatives and evaluated them, they should make their choice among the alternatives The different types of intention influence on the level and direction of the search (Hawkins & Mothersbaugh, 2010)

This stage is important of intention process, it determines the quality of intention and how well the choice worked out In this stage, consumers start to compare their perceptions

of the product with their expectations (Kardes, et al., 2011)

The impact of online social networks on customer’s purchase intent

One of the interested things is that before deciding to purchase a certain item, instead

of listening to productions‟ advertisement or professional‟s consultant, Vietnamese people often listen to the opinion of relationship people (AC Nielsen, 2013)

AC Nielsen survey shows that 92 percent respondent said that they are interested to the opinion of relationship people before deciding to purchase a certain item In addition, 63 percent also said that they often find the sharing experience on internet about the product before purchasing

According to the research firm, more and more Vietnamese people use the internet as

a method to shop This trend is inevitable since the Internet is spreading all over the country and the numbers of people who own the connecting internet devices are increasing

2.3 Website social presence

Cyr et al (2007) defines social presence within a website as the feeling or sense of warmth and sociability The users recognize that the website develops a psychological connection, human contact, interaction and personal

The presence of both responsiveness and interactivity in an online social networking integration service experience simulate the traditional social – interactive customer shopping experience where retailers and customers interact via constant two-way communication and can serve to increase the perception of social presence in consumers

Customer feedback mechanisms and the ability to interact within a social networking integration service of online retailers may encourage users to perceive others as being psychologically present during an online shopping enjoyment

Prior research of Gefen and Straub (2003) and Kumar& Benhasat (2002) have suggested that the perception of website social presence positively influences user intentions

in an online context Therefore, the context is thought to have an impact on customer satisfaction with the emotions This is a result of the interaction with the website design elements in the consumption process

In the web context, actual interaction with other humans may be incorporated through website features such as e-mail after-sales support (Gefen & Straub, 2003), virtual communities and chats (Kumar & Benhasat, 2002), message boards (Cyr et al., 2007) The website feature that integrate a sense of social presence through imaginary interactions include socially rich picture content (Gefen & Straub, 2003; Cyr et al., 2007), socially rich text content (Gefen & Straub, 2003), personalized greetings support (Gefen & Straub, 2003; Kumar & Benhasat, 2002)

In addition, Hassanein & Head (2006) find that social presence indeed has a positive relationship with purchase intent and attitude toward a website

Hypothesis 1: The perception of social presence within an online retailers‟ website

will positively influence consumers‟ purchase intent

Trust can be used as an important construct, mechanism to explain interpersonal behavior under social institution Social psychologists justify that the trust relationship may occur interpersonal or inter-organizational, stressing individual behavior with consistency and predictable well-intentioned behavior (Doney, Canon, & Mullen, 1998)

Nowadays, the development of information technology, consumers confuse with the generally-used mass marketing techniques and lack trust in the authenticity of goods or services Facebook marketing is a newly typed marketing pattern in recent years Facebook are a new sharing method for youth consumers, where the Facebooker can interact with each other through direct comment on an unofficial basis and thus provide viewers with a situational description of daily life that is closely linked with their attention and interest

Shneiderman (2000) indicates that the recommendations from past or present users or from a third party can help the promotion of the trust of consumer towards the website

Briggs, et al (2002) points out the website design is the most important things, the website should look and feel appealing and transmission information should be reliable and

trustworthy, with clear and real service, including links to relevant alternative opinions or products

Gefen at el (2003) conducts research into the consumers‟ trust toward a shopping site, when the trust increases, their purchase intent will accordingly increase, as the shopping site not only satisfies the traditional buyer-seller relation, but also reduces the risk of online shopping Hence, the study proposes the hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: the higher the trust of online shops in Facebook, the higher the

consumer‟s purchase intent

2.5 Involvement

The concept of involvement has been widely used as measurement of consumers‟ attitude and behavior (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985) According to consumers‟ behavior toward certain involvement objects, Zaichkowsky (1986) divides involvement into advertisement involvement, product involvement and purchase decision involvement

(1) Advertising involvement: refer to consumer‟s attention level and associated reaction to advertisements on the basis of personal factors, such as demand, importance, value, and interest, along with the external factors, such as communication source, communication content, and stimuli, as well as purchase and consumption;

(2) Product involvement: consumer‟s attachment and reaction differ for various product types, brands and qualities

(3) Purchase decision making involvement: consumer‟s different behavior reactions with related information search, price, brand selection, time, alternatives and intention making for the purchase purpose

Wu et al (2008) indicates that as far as involvement is concerned, online information recipients are appreciable differences in terms of either their willingness to believe online consumption rumors or their own consumption behavior and intention

This study bases on definition of involvement created by Zaichkowsky (1985), defines involvement with shops in Facebook as the perceived relevance of the Facebook to the consumer based on inherent needs, values, and interests of the consumer Involvement is

an encouragement and leads consumer to spend more time searching for information to make the right choices (Celsi & Olson, 1998; Greenwald & Leavitt, 1984) Consumers who are highly involved with a shop in Facebook regard the Facebook as an important source of consumption information and perceive its content more intensively In addition, such consumers are also gain stronger experiences from browsing Facebook, thus including their purchase intents For example, highly involved consumers are more likely to remind themselves of interesting activities when they are interacting with the content of Facebook In contrast, low-involvement consumers simply accept the information that they encounter on Facebook and have low motivation to reflect upon their actions or relations with other people Therefore, this study proposes that hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: the consumer‟s involvement is positive impact to the consumers‟

purchase intent

2.6 Product attitude

Zhang (1986) defines attitude as an individual‟s persistent and consistent tendency toward matter of surrounding conditions, people, which can be forecasted by individuals‟ behavior Ajzen and Fishbein (1980) indicate that attitude is a certain observation of a subject‟s like or dislike evaluation and state, views based on the cognitive appreciation of

matters They also classify attitude with two concepts: “attitude toward the behavior” and

“attitude toward the object” This study refers to an individual‟s attitude toward matters or issues, such as the opinion that goods for sale online are cheaper Attitude may directly affect purchase intent, and also affect purchase behavior through other people‟s viewpoints and the external environment If a consumer‟s attitude toward advertising and a product is positive, coupled with the consumers‟ demand for the product, the purchase intent should then come into being Product attitude prefers to the desirability level Facebooker experiences in response to a specific product

In the context of consumer website use and online shopping adoption, several researchers have found positive and significant impacts of attitude on intention (Jeong & Lambert, 2001; Koraan, 2003; Van der Heijen, 2003) Further, favorable attitude is expected

to make the transactions easier and reduce barriers to the adoption of e-Commerce (Jarvenpaa

et al., 1999) The research of Miyake and Norman (1979) indicate that a consumer‟s knowledge allows them to put forward demands and assess the product quality Chung et al (2008) claimed that the quality of the product information provided by online vendors has a positive impact on product attitude Connecting these finding to Facebook shopping, the study hypothesized that:

Hypothesis 4: the higher a consumer‟s product attitude, a higher the purchase intent

2.7 The conceptual model and hypotheses of the research

This study aims to explore the effect of website social presence, trust, involvement, product attitude on purchase intent The conceptual framework is showed in Figure 2.1 and consists of four hypotheses In details, the group factors associated with hypothesis 1 to 4 are

independent and quantitative variables, they positive impact to purchase intent, a dependent

variable

Figure 2.1: A theoretical model

There are four hypotheses proposed for this research:

Hypothesis 1: The perception of social presence within an online retailers’ website will positively influence consumers’ purchase intent

Hypothesis 2: the higher the trust of online shops in Facebook, the higher the consumer’s purchase intent

Hypothesis 3: the consumer’s involvement is positive impact to the consumers’ purchase intent

Hypothesis 4: the higher a consumer’s product attitude, a higher the purchase intent

In summary, this chapter presents the theory of each concept in the research model Based on the literature review, there are four factors including website social presence, trust, involvement, product attitude that impact to consumers‟ purchase intent in Facebook The influence of each factor is considered and selected to establish the research model Their relationship has already studied by previous scholars, this study aims to confirm and test the case of Hochiminh city in Vietnam The next chapter will discuss about methodology that used to analyze the collected data and test the hypotheses of the research model

Website social presence

Trust

Involvement

Purchase intent

H1 H2

H3

H4 Product attitude

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the author reported the methodology that used to do this research Frist, research process, sample design, and data collection method are presented Then, measurement scales are mentioned to build the questionnaire, and the last part introduces the method to analyze data

3.1 Research process

The process of the research were taken as following: (see Figure 3.2)

Figure 3.1 Research process

Problem denifition

Research model and Hypotheses

Draft questionnaire

Indept-interview - Qualitative research

Revision Final

questionnaire

Main survey- Quantitative research

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) – Validity of measurment scale

Firstly, the research problem was defined, and then the research objective was identified to solve the research problem Second, this study conducted the literature review to review some relevant theories about factors impact to consumers‟ purchase intent in social networks Facebook and build the hypotheses for the research From this, the questionnaire was developed basing on the questions used in the previous studies Next step is research design The survey questionnaire was originally designed in English then translated into Vietnamese by the researcher The Vietnamese version of the survey questionnaire was then pre-tested by five interviewees for clarity and accuracy Collecting data process of this study included two steps First was in-depth interview, second was mainly survey

The in-depth interview helped ensure that the final questionnaire would be well understood by respondents and valuable in measuring observed variables The procedure of the in-depth discussion started with determining what information was needed to collect and modify in survey questionnaire Then the pre-test survey with five respondents was conducted for checking their understanding Based on the interview survey, the author slightly modified the questionnaire again to help the respondents understand questions easily, and confirmed that all of the chosen measurement scales were suitable for conducting in mass

in Vietnam (see Appendix A) When the author believed that the questionnaire was designed perfectly, the official survey was conducted widely by quantitative research

After that, collected data was cleaned and coded The data survey was analyzed by Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient and Exploratory Factor Analysis method to test the reliability and validity of measurement scales Multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the hypotheses Finally, the conclusion and implication was found and reported

3.2 Sampling design

3.1.1 Population

The major of respondents are people whose age from 18 to 45 years old, students and officers for both male and female who know or have experience in online shopping integrated social networks – Online shops in Facebook, case of Hochiminh City

In this study, there are 19 variables, so the minimum sample size for this research is

100 observations; and applied for the minimum sample size of the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) in this study also is 100 observations

Otherwise, Nunnally & Burnstein (as cited in Nguyen, 2011) illustrated the minimum sample size, which is required for the multiple regressions analysis should be:

n ≥ 50 + 8m (where m is equal to the number of independent variables)

In this study, there are four independent factors and one dependent factor, so this study needs 82 observations at least for the multiple regressions analysis

Summarily, this study needs 100 observations at least to use for statistical analysis of EFA and multiple regression analysis

3.3 Data collection procedure

In this study, samples are mainly collected through internet using Google Survey form Respondents received questionnaire‟s link through email and social networks Facebook In addition, for convenience case the survey was delivered directly in hard copies

Participants completed a survey by themselves with most of items were measured by five-point Likert scale, including “strongly disagree” (=1), “disagree” (=2), “neutral” (=3),

“agree” (=4), “strongly agree” (=5) The respondents had three weeks to complete the questionnaire One week after the initial invitation a reminder email was sent to encourage respondents to participate as well as thank them if they did already Data collection was conducted both on week and weekend days during one month

Because online shopping in Facebook is still new in Vietnam, 300 surveys were distributed to target respondents to get the data for analysis In detail, 200 questionnaires were distributed via email, Facebook, the rest of 100 questionnaires were delivered by paper

to the students of International School of Business and University of Economic Hochiminh city After the data collection, there are merely 259 respondents have been collected for survey, a response rate about 86 percent However, 40 samples were eliminated with 10 questionnaires were uncompleted answers, 23 questionnaires was deleted because respondents had no idea about online shopping in Facebook, the rest samples was invalid due

to there was one option for all questions or their answers were implausible Since, there only

219 samples were usable for data analysis process (See table 3.1) This sample size is enough for testing EFA well as running multiple regression analysis in SPSS

Table 3.1 Source of data collection

Source Distributed Collected Eliminated Valid

3.4 Measurement scales

All scaling used in the questionnaire were adapted from past research The major of

the scale items are adopted from the existing literature but adapted to the online shopping in

social networking integration service

The measurement scale is illustrated in Table 3.2

Table 3.2 Source of measurement scale

Website Social Presence (WSP)

1 There is a sense of human contact in the website Adapted from

Gefen and Straub (2003)

2 There is a sense of sociability in the website

3 There is a sense of human warmth in the website

4 There is a sense of sensitivity in the website

Trust (T)

5 I feel that this online vendor is honest

Adapted from Gefen et al.(2003)

6 I trust this website

7 I feel that this online vendor cares about customers

8 I feel that this online vendor would provide me with good service

Product Attitude (PA)

9 For the products show in the Facebook shops that I have ever browsed, I like

its brand

Adapted from MacKenzie et

al (1986)

10 For the products show in the Facebook shops that I have ever browsed, I

think the brand is of value

11 For the products show in the Facebook shops that I have ever browsed, I

think the brand is of good quality

Involvement (I)

12 I am interested in reading Facebook shops about information, diaries, photos

Zaichkowsky

13 When reading information in Facebook shops, I feel the information is

No Variables/Items Source

Purchase intent (PI)

16 I like spend time in browsing Facebook shops Adapted from

Haley and Case (1979), Mackenzie et

al (1986), Anand and Sternthal (1990), and Shimp et al (1991)

17 I‟d like to purchase credible and worthwhile products posted in Facebook

shops

18 I‟d like to recommend other people for the credible products posted in

Facebook shops

19 Next time to purchase similar products, I‟d like to take the same credible

Facebook store into account

Website social present was measured with four items developed by Gefen and Straub

(2003) The scale used Likert scale ranging from 1 (strong disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) for

measurement the human contact, sociability, sensitivity and human warmth

Trust was measured using four items in Gefen at al., 2003‟s research The items were

stated on five-point Likert type scale

Measurement of attitude towards the products is based on measurement of MacKenzie

et al (1986) composed seven semantic scale items to measure brand attitude, such as

favorable or unfavorable, good or bad, wise or foolish, valuable or worthless, etc Three items

were adopted to Facebook shops and stated on five-point Likert type scale

To measure consumers‟ involvement, Zaichkowsky (1985) first composed a bipolar adjective scale to measure personal involvement, the study choose some of them that the respondents can understanding clearly and suitable for the context of social networks like Facebook shops, including items relevant to me, means a lot to me, appealing, and of interest

to me These measurement scales were adopted, added and modified to the object (Facebook shops)

Purchase intent adapted from the questionnaire items proposed by Haley and Case (1979), MacKenzie et al (1986), Anand and Sternthal (1990), Shimp et al.(1991), four semantic differential scale items, including: likely or unlikely, probable or improbable, possible or impossible, and worthy or worthless, were developed to measure consumers‟ purchase intent

3.5 Questionnaire design

This study aims at examine the impact of online social networks on consumers‟ purchase intent; more precisely, it try to discover how online social networks have impact on consumers‟ purchase intent, and also the reason behind To investigate and collect data to fulfill the study, proper research methods need to be used in order to ensure a reliable result

In order to carry out the prospect result and information, a quantitative research methodology was taken following the qualitative research Primary data would be obtained through online questionnaire interviews with consumers who checked online shops in Facebook

The questionnaire consisted of three sections: section A, B and C Nominal scale is used in section A and C with many manual exclusive and collectively exhaustive categories (Sekaran, 2006)

The first section explored respondents‟ purchasing frequency regard to online shopping in Facebook This section included a consent form and screening questions to identify accuracy target respondents of this survey The consent form clarifies in detail the participants‟ privacy protection commitment, estimated duration of response, significance of participation, and the intention and importance of the survey Screening questions were used are two following questions: “May you know or shop any online retail store in Facebook?” and “How many times do you visit online retail store in Facebook in a week on average?” The respondents would answer the first screening question before started doing the survey If anyone answered “No”, it meant that they are not target respondents of this survey and they would stop their job

The second section consists of Facebook integration service introduction scenario and items measuring 5 variables, regarding website social presence, trust, involvement, product attitude and purchase intent, with online shopping integrated social networks targeted The Likert Scale 5 was adopted to measure the degree of the agreement with ordinal scale items, where “strong agree”, „agree”, “neutral”, “disagree”, and “strongly disagree” were respectively represented by 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 as the measured values

Section C includes respondent demographic details such as gender, age, level education, income level Such information was used to classify and compare groups of respondents

Finally, the structured questionnaire in English version and Vietnamese version were presented in Appendices B and C

3.6 Data analysis method

SPSS version 16 (Statistical package for Social Science) with enter method was used

to analyze the collected data First, the validity and reliability of the scale instrument were checked in the current study using Cronbach‟s Alpha analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) The items which were not satisfied the conditions of reliability and validity would be deleted before running regression Finally, the purchase intent of consumers would

be evaluated by multiple regression The multiple regression was used to identify the correlation and measure the impact level of each independent variable to dependent variable -purchase intent

In summary, this chapter described the choice of sample size, measurement scale construction, and research method applied to process the collected data A paper-based questionnaire was developed for data collection; it was distributed directly and email to respondents.This study was designed into two phases: first was qualitative phase (in-depth interview), second was quantitative phase (main survey) The in-depth interview was conducted to modify the measurement scale After the qualitative phase, the questionnaire was revised slightly before the official survey Main survey had sample size which included total 219 valid questionnaires that were used for data analysis with regression method The next chapter will present data analysis results of main survey