Over a Decade of Social Commerce: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Social commerce, a fairly new concept in the world of marketing has gained a lot of momentum in the last few years. Considered as a subset of e-commerce, it is an emerging area of research and this article aims to investigate the developments and trends in research on social commerce. Using bibliometric analysis, a detailed study of the research on social commerce from 2009 to 2021 has been conducted. Performance analysis and science mapping have been done on a total of 530 articles available in the Scopus database on social commerce. Data selection was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews process. The descriptive analysis revealed that N. Hajli is the most prolific author and China is the most prolific country with the highest number of publications in the field of social commerce. Based on the h-index, the International Journal of Information Management and Electronic Commerce Research and Application were found to be the most impactful journals. The cluster analysis identified social commerce constructs, antecedents and consumer behaviour as the most trending themes. The study makes for a better understanding of the development in social commerce for both researchers and marketers. There is a lot of scope for research in this filed as international collaborations are increasing and new trends are emerging. This study uses one of the latest review techniques, that is, bibliometric analysis to study social commerce covering the longest period of research in the field, that is, from 2009 to 2021.