Intención de compra online y prácticas de comunicación en social media en empresas de moda

Resumen

The popularization of information and communication technologies and the Internet and its incorporation by companies allows the development of a new distribution channel through online stores. Additonally, the scope and speed of dissemination of information provided by social media makes them a great communication tool for companies. We are experiencing a great change in consumption habits. Currently, online sales are gaining market share to the traditional sale in physical stores. Consumers have an unprecedented amount of information, trust in online payment continues growing, and there is a great amount of reliable retailers and well known brands with good reputation that are constantly joining the new distribution channel. In order to contribute to research in the area of online commerce, this study raises the doble objective of analyzing the strategies of communication in social media by fashion retailers and studying the factors that influence the decision to buy fashion through the Internet. This thesis consists on three chapters, considered as independent research units, which offer additional research questions to complement the main ones, forming as a whole a coherent and consecutive investigation. The first chapter is devoted to the analysis of the factors that influence the decision to buy fashion articles online. Through the application of a regression analysis in the results of consumer surveys, it elaborates a model that represents the relations between the nine proposed constructs, measured by their corresponding elements. The main factors affecting the online purchase intation of fashion are perceived value, trust and consumer’s fashion innovativeness. Based on an analysis of the content of more than 2,300 posts of the 46 leading companies in the fashion sector, the second chapter provides a conceptual overview of how the world's leading fashion retailers use the social network Facebook and the main purposes of using this communication channel. Our results show that the size of the audience on Facebook is positively related to the size of the firm. The commitment of the audience and its participation in the corporate profiles of these firms is greater the smaller the company. However, the size of the audience is not related to the level of activity of the brand in this social network. The main content of the corporate profiles of the leaders of the fashion distribution is marketing and the most attractive support for the audience is the visual, photos and videos. Finally, the third chapter of this dissertation is dedicated to the examination of the use of the most popular network in the fashion sector, Instagram. After a quantitative analysis of the publications of the largest companies in the sector, in the third chapter we explored the potential of Instagram as a channel of communication and participation in the fashion industry with the objective of elaborating an idea about whether the main actors of the fashion industry are using this social network as a marketing tool; And to analyze the effect of the actions carried out by the companies in this medium in their audiences. Our results reveal that the size of the company is related to the size of its Instagram audience and that the firms with more activity in their corporate profiles reach larger audiences. This dissertation is the first attepmt to provide an overview of the practices of fashion industry companies in social media marketing. The contribution of this thesis is to offer a conceptual overview of how fashion companies use social media Facebook and Instagram and the impact of its use. Therefore the findings of this study could contribute significantly to the literature, especially in the social media environment. On the other hand our research proffers with some theoretical and practical implications for academics and professionals who can benefit from them, extrapolating best practices to the field of small and mediumsized enterprises.