Social Commerce: The Mediating Effects of Trust and Value Co-creation on Social Sharing and Shopping Intentions

Abstract

AbstractAs social media developed rapidly all over the world, online customers tend to seek advices before making purchase decisions. Yet little known is about how social media community members would influence each other and in what ways that lead to social commerce, especially social sharing intention and social shopping intention. This study argues the more social media participation the more consumers’ interaction favors of experience sharing, and the better consumer engagement in social shopping. This study proposes the quantitative models and collects data through sending email survey to the social media users, reporting data collected from 286 respondents. Eight of the ten research hypotheses are supported. The results of the analysis of structured equation modeling show that indicate that three social factors, social presence, social support, and social commerce construct, have significantly and positively affected consumers’ trust and value co-creation. Furthermore, the results indicate that consumers’ cognition, trust, value co-creation have positive impacts on two social commerce intentions, social shopping intention and social sharing intention, referring that cognitive variables have significant mediation effects between social factors and social intention variables. Theoretical and practical implications are provided.KeywordsSocial mediaSocial commerceTrustValue co-creationSocial support