Investigating the role of social presence dimensions and information support on consumers’ trust and shopping intentions

Abstract

Social presence of consumers is increasingly important in social commerce and online merchants are looking for ways to enhance that for boosting consumers? trust and product sales. The prior studies have recognized the influence of social presence on trust, while it is not explicit which dimensions of social presence will enhance consumers? trust. Moreover, as a key factor how information support affects the relationship between social presence and trust is unclear. This study aims to examine how does information support moderates the relationship between different social presence dimensions and trust in social commerce. Further, the influence of consumers' trust in online merchants is examined on shopping intentions. Based on information support and social presence theory, we construct a theoretical model integrating the above relationships. The quantitative data is collected from different cities of China (n = 389) and analyzed through Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings demonstrate the validity of three dimensions of social presence: interactions between consumers, interactions between consumers and merchants, and interactions between consumers and commodities. Particularly, information support is not positively moderating the relationship between social presence through consumers? interactions and consumers? trust in online merchants, while information support moderates the effect of the other two dimensions on trust. Finally, consumers? trust in online merchants has a significant effect on shopping intentions. The findings have some theoretical enlightenment and practical implications.