Modeling Perceived Social Media Performance as an Information Driver of Consumer Decision-Making in Grocery Retail

As social media campaigns become increasingly important in grocery and supermarket retail communication strategies, there is little research on how consumers view campaign performance throughout their decision-making process, rather than isolated behavioral outcomes. This study examines how the five-stage decision-making process is influenced by consumer-perceived social media performance effectiveness (CP-SMPE), grounded in consumer decision-making theory and social media performance literature. The study uses a mixed-methods research design, combining qualitative interviews with the consumers and a quantitative survey of 300 grocery shoppers in Greece. Perceived return on investment, revenue contribution, lead generation, engagement, reach, cost efficiency, and quality of electronic word-of-mouth are components of social media performance conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. Exploratory factor analysis and PLS-SEM were employed to analyze quantitative data. The findings show that high perceived social media campaign performance influences all stages of the consumer decision-making process, both directly and indirectly, through sequential intermediate stages. It ultimately enhances purchase decisions and post-purchase outcomes. By adopting a consumer-centric, process-based perspective, this study contributes to research on digitally mediated retail decision-making by demonstrating how effective social media communication can support more informed, structured consumer choices. The findings suggest that social media communication can lead to more informed and potentially responsible consumption choices by improving information environments and decision support, even though sustainability outcomes are not directly measured.