The Business Potential of Social Media within the Cosmetic Industry: studying the social media impact on French generation Z consumer’s behaviour for purchasing cosmetic product

Abstract

The cosmetic industry is experiencing a solid growth thanks to the increasing demand for beauty products and the use of e-commerce platform. Social media is playing a significant role in this growth by providing various platforms to cosmetic companies helping in widely presenting their products and services and therefore connect with their targeted customers. This study investigates the topic of consumers’ behaviour as this concept can be influenced in various way through social media. These impacts are various and can take forms of variables such as consumers’ exposure and attitude. The current goal of this research is to determine the business potential of social medias within the cosmetic industry. Therefore, the objectives are to better understand which social media channels are used by the French generation Z when searching for information and the im- pact of users generated content on the purchasing behaviour. After critically reviewed publications on the research topic and concepts, the author created a survey as research instrument in form of a quantitative questionnaire for collecting data. One hundred answers were collected thanks to Google Forms and analysed with diagrams and excel sheet in order to find the answers to the research questions. The results reveal that the consumers’ behaviour of French generation Z can be influenced by social media. In fact, it can be influenced by the exposure, the attitude, the environment (such as the people providing information), peer-to-peer, personal factors, and the experience of consuming the cosmetic product .