Network closure among sellers and buyers in social commerce community

Abstract

Social commerce communities connect sellers and buyers and allow them to seek and share product information. Although the extant literature has realized its economic value, there has been little research on the antecedents of network closure in social commerce community with longitudinal network data. Based on the evolving network data from Taobao.com and network closure theory, this research analyzes network closure among sellers and buyers in social commerce community and we find that the drivers of network closure in social commerce communities vary across different types of relationships. Specifically, (1) from the buyers’ perspective, they are more likely to follow other buyers and sellers through observational learning and contagion; (2) from the sellers’ perspective, the homophily, reciprocity, and structural equivalence are the general mechanisms that drive them following both buyers and sellers; (3) the results from the robustness checks show that the findings would not be affected by the sample size or the duration of the observations.This study contributes to the ongoing study of social networks analysis in social shopping and social commerce. Furthermore, the ties studied in this research connect both sellers and buyers, which are different from the ties of friendship in most social network literatures. Findings from this research will also help marketers better understand how social commerce community networks evolve and adjust their relationship management strategies.