Abstract:
Social media plays a crucial role in shaping consumer behaviour in the market. This
research intends to examine how social media marketing affects clothing related
consumer behaviour in Sri Lanka. By focusing on the question as to how social media
marketing affects consumers' decision-making process generally in relation to
clothing companies, the study examines the historical development of Instagram,
Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, assess the influence of social media on customer
behaviour, and provide guidance to clothing firms on enhancing their social media
marketing tactics. The study specifically targeted active social media users in Sri
Lanka, with a focus on 100 consumers as samples from the clothing industry who
utilize social media. The data collected underwent reliability analysis to assess its
dependability, while additional statistical techniques such as Pearson correlation,
multiple linear regression, simple linear regression, and descriptive statistics were
employed to examine the proposed hypotheses. The results of this study showed that
customer purchasing behaviour towards the clothing industry is positively impacted
by social media marketing. The empirical evidence gathered from this study
unequivocally supports the notion that social media marketing plays a significant role
in shaping consumer behaviours. It is worth noting that the impact of social media
marketing varies from country to country. In Bangladesh, it has a direct impact on
consumption habits. Purchase intentions also serve as an effective tool to acquire
new customers in India. Furthermore, in Sri Lanka, social media marketing has a
positive potential to increase purchase intentions. Sri Lanka's cultural landscape
provides a unique context for the study of consumer behaviour, which can be very
different from other parts of the world.
