Impact of Customer Satisfaction on Buying Behavior: The Mediating Effect of Word of Mouth (WOM). A Survey of Retail Markets of Karachi

Abstract

This research aims to determine empirically the impact of customer satisfaction on word of mouth (WOM) marketing and buying behavior in terms of retails dealing in apparel, perfumes, and footwear businesses in Karachi - the cosmopolitan city of Pakistan. Business organizations will be the primary beneficiary of this study to help them identify marketing strategies to enhance growth while simultaneously curtailing the advertisement costs (termed as Sales Promo Tool (SPT), through focusing on customer satisfaction and positive WOM. A Survey Questionnaire on the basis of convenience sampling was administered in the cosmopolitan city of Sindh province (total population of Sindh = 47.886 million as per census 2017). For this purpose, 250 responses - age range from 18 years to 35 years – were collected. Products’ prices ranging from Rs.500 to Rs.2000, this cost seemed easy to pay for trial purchases by the consumers through WOM. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed with the help of Andrew F. Hayes process. The results show that there is a significant impact of customer satisfaction on word of mouth marketing, buying behavior, and possibly retail sales augmentation. Research has been done on the WOM but this model having an interconnected significant impact of Satisfaction upon WOM and Buying behavior is an addition as a latest-trends path finder for Karachi markets, to find out the latest customer trends in terms of their experiences and insights in commodities specially priced as low cost fetching gigantic sales trends.