Keywords

Fashion Apparels, Indian Millennials, Instashoppers, Purchase Intention, Shopper’s Perception, Area Sampling.

Introduction

Instagram is a person-to-person communication medium that started in October 2010 and enjoying millennials to view photos, videos, and reels. They are typically shared via "posts" from users' "accounts." All of a user's posts can experience in their profile, and the accounts of their "followers" receive them as news feeds. The Instashoppers are completely up to their wish to accept or decline "follow" proposals from random individuals. Shoppers can have "followers," which indicate how famous their Instagram account is. Mega-influencers have more than one million followers, while macro-influencers have between 100,000 and one million followers.

A micro-influencer has 1,000 to 100,000 Instagram followers, whereas a micro-influencer has fewer than 1,000 followers. A user doesn't have to choose to follow those who support him back. Whether or not he follows any account of his choice is entirely up to him. Apparel is projected to become the world's most popular online retail product category. Millennials born between 1980 and 2000 are the most important of all age groups. A group of consumers in the social media fashion marketplace. They are the only age group whose median income will increase over the next five years (Makortoff, 2015), increasing their future purchasing power. Millennials, apart from growing up with e-technology, are more familiar with technology and the online shopping environment than older generations. Many people use social networking sites as communication tools for a variety of reasons. During the pandemic, their application and significance have grown significantly. During the lockdown, most people turned to these websites for entertainment and news, forming meaningful virtual relationships, openly expressing their thoughts and emotions, and sharing their activities. Some of the most renowned social networking sites are YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and TikTok. Every day, a variety of topics trend on social media. 'Fashion' is one such topic that never goes out of style on social networking sites. Social media has been shown to have a significant impact on consumer purchasing behaviour. Several studies have confirmed this phenomenon.

According to 2023, retaildive.com, Instagram announced that the Shopping tab will be removed, the social media company mentioned that businesses will still be able to set up shop on the Instagram app as well as continue to invest in shopping experiences. Surprisingly, a focus group study discovered that women prefer Instagram due to its visual component, while men prefer Twitter as the most frequently used social media platform. Women seek style and clothing recommendations from Instagram profiles. Kiruthiga et al. (2022), even onlineportal growth primarily depends on the customers. Techno-friendly era the online purchasing solely depends on understanding the customer psychology.

Purchase Intention

Bulbul (2015), is a type of decision making that investigates why customers buy a particular brand. Majority of instashoppers predominantly 60.20% visit a page by clicking promoted link such as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo search engines, public mail servers etc. So, e-commerce sites ought to be promoted on target millennials and Gen Z.

To assess the social media endorsement by using the VisCAP Model (Rossiter & Percy, 1997) elements with Visibility, Credibility, Attractiveness, and Power, with all shoppers. Marketer should align with the new effects that need to be boosted.

Visibility: The presenter in Instagram who are admired or followed by many celebrities.

Credibility: Trustworthiness is the presenter's willingness to make an honest statement.

Attractiveness: Attraction means receiving messages based on the followers' attractions.

Followers will be profitable in changing views and customer behaviour by employing the mechanism of attraction, which is to create the impression that those following the celebrities have something people want, so they are ready to follow the message's contents.

Power: Power is the gravitas generated by a public figure in order to influence consumers to acquire or use a company supported by the celebrity or influencer.

When millennials become as instashoppers question the authenticity of the people and channels they interact with. In contrast to previous studies (Cheung & Thadani, 2012; Sher & Lee, 2009) that claimed that online reviews were unreliable, to make overall decisions, the majority of millennials read product reviews online. However, reviews with incomprehensible, insecure, or unhelpful information, or reviews with unreliable content, can have a negative effect on millennials' social learning. As consequently, interactions with various social media channels (blogs, social networking sites, review sites, and so on) raise concerns and have a negative impact on millennials' purchasing intentions and, ultimately, their online clothing purchasing choices Figure 1.

Hypothesis

H₁: The demographic factors influence more the instashoppers on Purchase Intention.

H₂: The Psychographic factors influence more the instashoppers on Purchase Intention.

A certain way of carrying out promotions that can influence customer attitudes and recognition of the brand is to use celebrity endorsement in social media marketing. As a result, the study model shows that celebrity endorsement can influence attitude and brand awareness, which in turn can influence buy intentions. Meena & Catherine (2023), infers that impulsive buying purchase are strongly influenced based on the Income vs discount offers.

The Vampire effect sometimes reflects, if there is no match between the celebrity and the brand, the audience will remember the celebrity instead of the brand. Instagram fashion-related accounts have more followers and a higher engagement rate than other social media accounts. Since instashoppers use the content on Instagram accounts to make educated fashion purchase decisions, it is reasonable to assume that Instagram influences instashoppers purchasing decisions. In addition, the creative videos and visually appealing images that influencers post provide the recent happenings in trendy visual clues to the all millennials regarding the most recent fashion brands or shop. The instashoppers will undoubtedly be swayed in the direction of instainfluencers content. Catherine.et.al (2018), states that decision taken by the customers after extensive search and evaluating the factors like pricing, distance travelled, changes in brand, pack-size preferences.

Review Of Literature

Chai (2020) proposed by instainfluencers are used by brands to communicate with customers. Marketer-generated content (MGC) refers to information shared by the marketer. Consumer-generated content (CGC) refers to content created by instainfluencers. Content can be entertaining or informative. Instashoppers purchasing decisions can be influenced by either content. The contrast effects of CGC and MGC on fashion apparels are the expenditures to the company. It was discovered that as Instagram engagement increased, so did expenditure patterns. Compared to MGC, UGC had a significant positive effect on consumers' minds. Kumar & Bangari, (2023) discussed that the online review ratings, electronic word of mouth, promotional measures to increase the customer satisfaction, that implies the purchase intention to do shopping decision argued that trust is the most important factor in exchange-type relationships and a factor that has a big effect on how people shop both online and in person (Winch & Joyce, 2006). Trust is very important in the context of online shopping because consumers perceive transactions to be more risky in a virtual setting because they do not have direct contact with the seller or the underlying goods. Instashoppers behaviour is influenced by his or her instainfluencers intentions to carry out the behaviour. These intentions, in turn, are dependent on three elements that are referred to as cognitive structures: a) the influence of behavioural beliefs and the combination of attitudes; b) normative beliefs; and c) control beliefs.

Catherine et al (2018), proposed social acceptance is concerned with the happiness experienced by instashoppers when are maintained by the store. The provider is able to keep his promises and advice is solicited by the customers. Store trust, as per the research, was found to have a negligible positive impact on satisfaction with supermarket chain store. Previous studies conducted by the consumers who buy through online Kalaivani & Suganya, (2022) found that it was easier to buy products online than physical store. Consumers do not prefer to travel to shop particularly those who indulge a lot in mobile shopping.

Research Methodology

This was study conducted by a pilot survey using google forma to instashoppers in south Chennai. It has been spread among young adults. A total of 200 target respondents have been reached out, of which 103 active instashoppers have responded to the survey. The participation was entirely voluntary and anonymous. The questionnaire is divided into four sections in order to examine responses through four dimensions. These four components included instashoppers' awareness, psychographic factors, perceived trust, and buying intention. Respondents were requested to express their agreement on a 5-point Likert scale with each item of the questionnaire, namely strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, and strongly agree.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistical tools. Chi-square tests were done to check if there is significant association between respondents’ attributes such as gender, age, education, and the time spent on social media platform, and behaviour regarding perceived social acceptance of instainfluencers and following influencer on Instagram Tables 1-5.

Table 1 Demographic Attributes
S.No	Variable	Category	Frequency	Percentage
1.	Gender	Female Male	73 30	70.8 29
2.	Age	Up to 30yrs 30-45 More than 45	95 08 0	92 8 0
3.	Education	UG PG Others	36 67 0	35 65 0

Table 2 Education Influencing The Instashoppers To Accept In Society
Crosstab
		SA (social acceptance)		Total
		0	1
Edn	1	14	19	33
	2	13	54	67
	3	1	2	3
Total		28	75	103

Table 3 The Educated Shoppers Are Aware Of The Insta Platform
Crosstab
		Awareness		Total
		0	1
Education	1	9	24	33
	2	18	49	67
	3	1	2	3
Total		28	75	103

Table 4 The Gender Difference In Their Shopping Preferences Is Influenced To Follow Insta-Influencers
Crosstab
		Insta-Influencers- follow		Total
		0	1
Gender	1	23	50	73
	2	4	26	30
Total		27	76	103

Table 5 How Long Shoppers Are Spending Their Time To Follow The Insta-Influencers
Crosstab
		Insta-Influencers- follow		Total
		0	1
Time Spent	1	6	7	13
	2	11	31	42
	3	5	19	24
	4	5	19	24
Total		27	76	103

H_1a: There is association between the educational level of instashoppers are socially accepted and aware about the insta-platform.

Inference: People who are enthusiastic about Instagram shopping will be more likely to make purchases via the platform. Alongside these, the educational factor demonstrates a proportion of a social acceptance considerations of instainfluencers is likewise found to emphatically affect purchasing intention. From the above chi-square table, the association between two variables are significantly P value less than 0.05, which statistically 95% Irrespective of educational instashoppers are shopping social acceptance.

H_1b: There is no association between the educational level of instashoppers are aware about the insta-platform.

Inference: From the above table, the P value shows that more than 0.05 which is highly insignificant towards the variable taken for the study. Therefore, it is concluded that the educational somewhat influencing the awareness of doing shopping using insta-platform.

H_1c: There is no association between the gender of insta-shoppers and preferences of insta-influencers

Inference

From the above table, the P value shows less than 0.05 which is highly significant towards the variable taken for the study. Instashoppers believe that Insta-platform is up to the mark and dignitary platform for shopping.

H_2a: There is association between the time spent to follow the Insta-Influencers.

Inference: From the above table, the P value shows less than 0.05 which is highly significant towards the variable taken for the study. They are the time spent in hours to follow the instainfluencers in fashion reels Tables 6-11.

Table 6 Instashoppers Hours Spent Are Significantly Associated By Instainfluencers With Belief Towards Socially Accepted
Crosstab
		SA (social acceptance)		Total
		0	1
Hours	1	6	7	13
	2	12	30	42
	3	3	21	24
	4	7	17	24
Total		28	75	103

Table 7 Variables Entered/ Removeda
Model	Variables Entered	Variables Removed	Method
1	Trust	.	Stepwise (Criteria: Probability-of-F-to-enter <= .050, Probability-of-F-to-remove >= .100).
2	SA (social acceptance)	.	Stepwise (Criteria: Probability-of-F-to-enter <= .050, Probability-of-F-to-remove >= .100).
a. Dependent Variable: Influenced

Table 8 Model Summary
Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate	Change Statistics
					R Square Change	F Change	df1	df2	Sig. F Change
1	.573a	.329	.322	.413	.329	49.477	1	101	.000
2	.610b	.372	.360	.401	.044	6.934	1	100	.010
a. Predictors: (Constant), trust
b. Predictors: (Constant), trust, SA (social acceptance)

Table 9 Anovaa
Model		Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	8.427	1	8.427	49.477	.000b
	Residual	17.204	101	.170
	Total	25.631	102
2	Regression	9.543	2	4.772	29.659	.000c
	Residual	16.088	100	.161
	Total	25.631	102
a. Dependent Variable: influenced
b. Predictors: (Constant), trust
c. Predictors: (Constant), trust, SA (social acceptance)

Table 10 Coefficientsa
Model		Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.
		B	Std. Error	Beta
1	(Constant)	.238	.052		4.579	.000
	trust	.587	.083	.573	7.034	.000
2	(Constant)	.084	.077		1.089	.279
	trust	.529	.084	.517	6.290	.000
	SA (social acceptance)	.242	.092	.216	2.633	.010
a. Dependent Variable: influenced

Table 11 Excluded Variablesa
Model		Beta In	t	Sig.	Partial Correlation	Collinearity Statistics
						Tolerance
1	Real Life	.136b	1.255	.212	.125	.563
	SA(social acceptance)	.216b	2.633	.010	.255	.931
	InstaInfluencers- follow	.134b	1.588	.115	.157	.914
	Awareness	.122b	1.455	.149	.144	.931
2	Real Life	.095c	.884	.379	.088	.549
	InstaInfluencers- follow	.122c	1.477	.143	.147	.910
	Awareness	.101c	1.224	.224	.122	.921
a. Dependent Variable: influenced
b. Predictors in the Model: (Constant), trust
c. Predictors in the Model: (Constant), trust, SA (social acceptance)

Inference: From the above table, the P value shows less than 0.05 which is highly significant towards the variable taken for the study. Shoppers are spending their time spent to do shopping and engaged by the instainfluencers reviews and reels about the fashion apparels, specifically with discounts and offers.

To sum up, the results show significant association between

• Level of education and perceived social acceptance of insta-influencer (P=.02)
• Gender and following instainfluencer (p=.032)
• Hours spent on Instagram and following insta-influencer (p=.031)
• Hours spent in Instagram and perceived social acceptance of instainfluencers (p=.048).
• Hours spent and awareness regarding instainfluencers

Regression Analysis

Regression test has been to test the level of association between explanatory variables (such as Trust, Perceived Social Acceptance, perceived portrayal of realistic lifestyle by instainfluencers, following influencers) and the outcome variable- being influenced (insta-shopping). The output shows trust is the most significant factor in significantly affects insta-shopper behaviour (to make purchase on Instagram).

Regression model 1 shows the adjusted R².value of 322 with Trust being the explanatory variable, and in Model 2, the adjusted R² is .360 which implies about 36 percent of insta-shopping is being influenced by 2 predictors such trust and perceived social acceptance.

Inference: The data reveal the most significant factors such as trust and perceived social acceptance influencing insta-shopper behaviour. Both model 1 and model 2 are statistically significant at 99 percent confidence level. The items which are not included in the regression model such awareness, perceived portrayal of realistic lifestyle by instainfluencers and following of instainfluencers though not statistically significant, are distinct enough which can be verified. The variable collinearity should be minimum .2 to be distinct as an item which is satisfied in the criterion Nair (2020).

Conclusion

The companies get significant share of their top line from young consumers and provide a sizeable sales potential, therefore have become an interesting target group for companies. In this study the factors like gender, education represents for demographic factors, Time spent, Trust and social acceptance of instashoppers are taken as psychographic factors which in turn influence instashoppers to use Instagram platform for shopping. Friends and co-workers are found to be supporting them in their purchasing activity. This demonstrates that the findings are comparable. The findings also demonstrate that trust is a significant influence on online shopping intentions. Instainfluencers must cultivate trust with their instashoppers in order to increase such intention. To accomplish this, Instainfluencers must develop a straightforward policy. Therefore, the demographic and psychographic variables showing positive impact towards purchase intention among millennials. The hypothesis taken all are supported except education is not important to be aware of the insta-platform, since many marketers nowadays using the platform to promote their business concerns in all means to reach the millennials.

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Received: 16-May-2023, Manuscript No. AMSJ-23-13600; Editor assigned: 17-May-2023, PreQC No. AMSJ-23-13600(PQ); Reviewed: 26-Jun-2023, QC No. AMSJ-22-13600; Revised: 15-Aug-2023, Manuscript No. AMSJ-23-13600(R); Published: 20-Sep-2023