The Impact of Social Media on Purchase Decisions of Different Products: An Evidence from Undergraduates in University of Vavuniya

Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the impact of social media on purchase decisions of different products among the undergraduates in university of Vavuniya. The primary data were gathered through online interface which was conducted during the period of June 2025 among second, third- and fourth-year students who are following special degree in 113 marketing special, faculty of Business Studies. Basic features of the samples were analyzed using frequency and the Multinomial probit model was employed to analyze the impact of social media usage, advertising on social media, contents of social media on purchase decisions of different products. The results of frequency of purchase decision of different types of products revealed that 35.4% of students preferred to the purchase fashion items,13.3% of them purchase an electronics items,16.8% of them prefer to purchase food items, 15.9% of them prefers to purchase beauty products and 18.8% of students preferred to the purchase other items. The out of 113 students, majority of them (55.5%) used Facebook and only 5.3% of them used Instagram as their major social medias. Respondents were asked how often they used social media and its results showed that, 7.1% of them used on daily basis, 7.1% of them used on the basis of several times per week and only 4.4% of them used the social media on once every few weeks. The results of Multinomial probit model revealed that gender and advertising are the important factor in determining the choice of electronic items while only gender is an important factor to determine the food items and beauty products at 1% and 10% levels of significant respectively. Further, choice of other product is determined by gender and social media in the study. Overall results of the Multinomial probit model indicate that gender, advertising and usage of social media have significantly influencing the consumers’ purchase decisions of different products in the study. These finding indicate to marketing managers that social media has become an important tool to reach consumers faster and more efficiently in modern marketing.