The effects of social commerce environmental characteristics on customers’ purchase intentions: The chain mediating effect of customer-to-customer interaction and customer-perceived value

Abstract

• A research model is proposed to examine the factors that influence purchase intention in social commerce. • Purchase intention is influenced by interactivity, stickiness, sociability, and personalization of the social commerce. • Customer-to-customer interaction and customer-perceived value have a chain mediating effect between the social commerce technical environmental characteristics and purchase intentions. • The relationship between interactivity and interpersonal interaction follows an inverted U-shaped curve. • Social commerce managers should take actions to design suitable environmental characteristics for better business promotion. Through the combination of e-commerce and social media, social commerce has the potential to significantly influence customers’ purchase intentions. However, the mechanisms underlying this influence still need to be elucidated. Based on a stimulus-organism-response model, a chained mediation model is built in the present study to reveal the relationships between environmental factors and customer behavior. Empirical analyses show that four technical environmental characteristics increase customers’ purchase intentions through customer-to-customer interaction and perceived value. One of these characteristics, “interactivity,” has inverted U-shaped effects on interpersonal interaction, while stickiness, personalization, and sociability have linear influential effects. The results of the present study offer recommendations to managers on how to build an attractive social commerce environment to effectively increase customers’ purchase intentions.