S-commerce: Influence of Facebook likes on purchases and recommendations on a linked e-commerce site

Abstract

Social networking site (SNS) driven e-commerce, the latest social commerce (s-commerce) phenomenon, gains prominence with the introduction of the call-to-action feature. The call-to-action feature on any sponsored post or advertisement on SNS redirects the user to a linked e-commerce website that offers the product. Information cues available on the SNS are expected to influence user decision making on the linked e-commerce site. Set in the context of Facebook driven e-commerce, this study explores how likes on Facebook influence user's purchase and recommendation decisions on a linked e-commerce website. Using controlled experiments we find that a higher volume of likes on Facebook leads to a higher likelihood of purchasing and recommending a product on the linked e-commerce site. This effect is found to be mediated by the user's initial product attitude formed on Facebook. An additional analysis examining the strength of the influence reveals that the mere presence of likes is not sufficient to impact the user's decision making. In fact, a low volume of likes elicits user behavior similar to absence of likes. The influence is effective only if the number of likes is substantially high. The findings of the study add to the s-commerce literature by establishing the inter-site influence of Facebook likes on user's purchase and post-purchase decisions and providing empirical evidence of the efficacy of SNS-driven e-commerce.