Social interactions affecting purchase intentions

This paper contains the results of a quantitative study on the influence of social interactions on the buying intentions of consumers. The social interactions used in this research were social comparisons, impressions management and self-image congruence with products. The results suggest that impressions management has the strongest impact on the purchasing intentions. This implies that consumers intend to buy products that they know will help them present their desired identity. The consumer's self-image congruence and social comparisons also have a moderate positive impact on buy intentions implying that the consumer intends to buy products that match their self and social image. The results suggest that marketer's need to focus on highlighting the social meaning of the product because consumer's intend to purchase the products that will help them to present their self and social image in order to get a specific desired response.