Abstract
Social commerce is an emerging platform that entails different social features to attract the attention of online consumers. Borrowing insights from the psychological contract theory, this study examines the characteristics of social commerce platforms, such as platform interactivity and rating and reviews that influence the consumers’ purchase intentions. An online survey of 430 consumers was conducted on a popular social commerce site in China. Partial least squares structural equation modeling and fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis techniques are used to analyze this mediation model. The results reveal the positive relationships between (1) psychological contract and purchase intention; (2) platform interactivity and relational contract; and (3) rating and reviews and transactional contract. Besides, partial mediating effects of relational contract, on the relationship between platform interactivity and purchase intention, and transactional contract, on the relationship between rating and reviews and purchase intention, are also observed. Moreover, fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis validates the robustness of platform characteristics with psychological contracts and purchase intentions. Overall findings suggest that the platform characteristics have the potential to transform consumers’ purchase intentions through psychological contracts. The study provides new insights on consumers' behavior in social commerce milieus, along with its theoretical and practical implications.
Highlights
Social commerce is a rendezvous for people to communicate and shop using social media [25]
Data were analyzed by using SmartPLS version 3.2.7 and fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis version 3.0
Keeping in view some limitations of partial least square-structural equational modeling (PLS-SEM), like causal symmetric relationships and net effects, this study tried to overcome these limitations by employing a new technique fuzzy sets qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), which is considered a valued algorithm for solving uncertainty issues [48]
Summary
Social commerce is a rendezvous for people to communicate and shop using social media [25]. Social media is commonly regarded as the great wave in technology, business, and social life [33]. Social commerce platforms are bringing more business opportunities through its rapid growth [2]. During the first quarter of 2018, online orders through social media averaged 78.17 U.S dollars [63]. Spending an average of more than two hours, 28% of internet users explore new products on social media and make a purchase [67]. About 30% of online consumers agree that they are likely to buy from Internet-based social networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat, whereas 23% of them were influenced by social media recommendations [20]. The characteristics and psychological mechanisms of platforms that influence purchase intention remain unclear
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