THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE PURCHASING BEHAVIOR OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WHO COLLECT ITEMS AS A HOBBY IN COLOMBIA

Abstract

The main purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of the different social media platforms used to perform e-commerce on the purchase behavior of university students who collect items as a hobby in Colombia. E-commerce in social media is today one of the strongest methods to advertise, buy or sell products or services. It is used by small businesses to big multinational companies to reach millions of customers all over the world. In the case of Colombia, 86.10% of young adults from 16 to 24 years use the internet to access social media. This is a great opportunity to create business possibilities due to the potential of this market which has been continuously growing over the recent years. Thus, this research focuses on finding out the key factors of social media that affect the purchase behavior of university students who are collectors in Colombia. For this reason, it is centered on the elements of perceived satisfaction, perceived trust, perceived convenience, and social pressure. Based on these factors, four hypotheses of the study were developed as a part of the research model. The conducted method was quantitative research, and data was collected from 181 university students who are frequent costumers of collectible shops in Colombia. Data was analyzed with AMOS version 21. The results revealed that perceived satisfaction and social pressure are not significantly correlated with the Intention of purchase in social media, whereas perceived trust and perceived convenience influence the purchase behavior in social media. Based on the results, study findings and implications were discussed. E-retailers who sell collectibles in Colombia can make use findings of this study to concentrate efforts on gaining first the trust of customers and show clear and concise information about their products.