Page 24 - MARSIUM'21 COMP OF PAPER

FACTORS THAT STRENGTHEN BRAND AWARENESS OF ONLINE

SECONDHAND MARKET

Aida Nadia Binti Abi Safian, Dr. Zuraidah Binti Sulaiman

Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru

*Corresponding author: aidanadia@graduate.utm.my, zuraidahs@utm.my

Abstract

Secondhand household goods become worn to alternate every home daily wear, hence, many new start-
ups are starting to take steps into these sectors. Unfortunately, pandemic was hit the overall state of world

economy that immediately impacted on the SME start-ups progress to establish. The enforcement of
government restriction has caused force majeure to pause the business operation in certain period of times.

Hence, the norm has switched into online way of buying and selling and activity.As such, this study

weighed up the factors that strengthen brand awareness of online secondhand market within the
evolvement to encourage the business growth. Consequently, the study evaluates the relationship between

sales promotion, social media marketing and search engine optimization towards the brand awareness of
secondhand market online industry. The distribution of online questionnaire survey was implemented

among 127 respondents. All the hypothesized relationship were analyzed by the application of Statistical
Package for the Social Science (SPSS). The analysis applied descriptive frequency statistic, multiple linear

regression and independent sample t-test to respond on the research questions. The study reveals that sales

promotion is the most important predictor to brand awareness. Contradictory to the assumption, the factors
of search engine optimization has not given a significant relationship towards influencing the brand

awareness. This research has shown the proficient insight on the adoption of elements in digital marketing

to encourage the brand awareness of online secondhand market. Future research may concentrate on the
crucial predictors such as switching the word of mouth into the social media marketing strategies.

Keywords: Secondhand Goods, Brand Awareness, Digital Marketing

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