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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The Iberian Peninsula is experiencing a context of generalized demographic aging combined
with the progressive adherence of elderly to ICT and social media. However, as organizations
acknowledge seniors as an increasingly attractive digital market segment due to their
economic power, free time and their high longevity, there remains a paucity of studies that
focus on the online shopping behavior of the elderly consumers.
Using a qualitative methodology, which involved 5 focus groups and 45 Portuguese and
Spanish elderly, the present research has the main objectives to understand how seniors
behave throughout the online purchase decision making process and to examine the role and
relevance that the elderly attribute to the brands in social media.
The results suggest a widespread resistance of the Iberian Peninsula seniors to make online
purchases, although some of the Portuguese seniors do it in low-involvement purchases and
more regularly than the Spanish ones. Seniors’ digital involvement with brand webpages
serves to support their purchase decision-making process, from information search about
characteristics, features or products’ prices of the product they intend to purchase, but also
for the evaluation of alternatives, based on the opinions of other internet users until the
purchase decision and post-purchase. Their information search frequency in the Facebook
pages of the brands is variable and their perception about these pages is negative, due to the
presence of advertising, to brand pressure but also to their contents (photographs and
products descriptions) presented on those pages.
Description
Keywords
Elderly ICT Social media Online consumer behavior Iberian Peninsula
Citation
Antunes, A. C., Gama, A. & Miranda, S. (2021, jul, 01-02). Can Facebook Support Senior's Consumer Decision Process?: A qualitative study. Paper presented, Online, in 8th European Conference on Social Media, Larnaca, Cyprus.