Social Commerce Environment Research Articles

Do digital celebrities' relationships and social climate matter? Impulse buying in f-commerce

PurposeGrowing evidence asserts that individuals are inclined to buy impulsively in the social commerce environment due to interactive elements. However, extant literature does not reveal the influence of emerging digital celebrities and their communities on impulse buying, although users may encounter them synchronously. Hence, this study explores the impact of parasocial relationships and social climate on impulse buying following the stimulus–organism–response framework with the incorporation of the urge to buy. Besides, this research investigates the role of hedonic and utility gratification-seeking behavior in parasocial relationships following uses and gratifications theory (UGT).Design/methodology/approachAn empirical research study was conducted on Facebook, and data were collected from Pakistani users who followed digital celebrities. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was employed to analyze the valid data of 231 respondents.FindingsThe results indicate that integrated constructs significantly influence impulse buying with complementary partial mediation of urge to buy. Besides, social climate significantly interacts the relationship of parasocial relationships and impulse buying. Further, passing time, enjoyment and information seeking has a significant impact on parasocial relationships, except for self-presentation.Originality/valueThis research provides key knowledge to comprehend the overall phenomenon of emerging digital celebrities through the integration of their parasocial relationships and the social climate of their communities, with potential intervening and interaction effects. This study also unveils the role of gratifications in building digital celebrities' parasocial relationships.

Examining the Role of Social Factors and Mooring Effects as Moderators on Consumers’ Shopping Intentions in Social Commerce Environments

Consumers on social commerce platforms can easily access product information, but these platforms have not attracted potential consumers in emerging economies. Studying the social factors (social support, social presence, and relationship quality) and mooring effects (conformity and personal experience) in social commerce environments is essential for understanding consumers’ intentions. This study examines the role of social factors by integrating mooring effects as moderators in the Chinese model, where fear for the reliability of consumers’ comments is a concern. Quantitative data are collected from Chinese cities ( N = 303) and analyzed through partial least squares–structural equation modeling. The findings demonstrate the validity of social factors and enjoyment. Mooring effects positively influence shopping intentions, and system and service quality positively influences relationship quality and shopping intentions. Finally, mooring effects positively moderate the relationship between social presence, social support, and consumers’ intentions. The findings have theoretical understanding and practical implications.

Impact of social experience on customer purchase decision in the social commerce context

PurposeThis study aims to examine the factor of social experience influencing an individual’s purchase decision in the social commerce (SC) environment by proposing a model developed based on the social impact theory. The proposed model consists of the number, closeness and tie strength of the influencing factor and the receiver.Design/methodology/approachA total of 288 responses were collected from Indonesian SC users to validate the theoretical model, which consists of perceived herd behavior, peer communication, emotional support, parasocial interaction and subjective norms. This study also explores the moderating effects of gender, age, experiences and occupations on the direct effect of model variables, which affect the individual’s intention to purchase in SC.FindingsThe results of this study showed that parasocial interaction is the strongest determinant of intention to purchase in SC, followed by perceived herd behavior and peer communication. However, the direct effect of subjective norms and emotional support were found insignificant in this study. For moderating effects, only gender and occupation were significant in terms of the immediate effect of peer communication, perceived herd behavior and subjective norms on intention to purchase.Originality/valueThe study contributes to theory in the form of insight on immediate effect and the exploratory investigation of moderating effects. It also contributes to practice by suggesting several practical actions based on the findings designed to achieve the objective of improving customers’ intention to purchase in SC.

Interpreting and predicting social commerce intention based on knowledge graph analysis

There have been significant efforts to understand, describe, and predict the social commerce intention of users in the areas of social commerce and web data management. Based on recent developments in knowledge graph and inductive logic programming in artificial intelligence, in this paper, we propose a knowledge-graph-based social commerce intention analysis method. In particular, a knowledge base is constructed to represent the social commerce environment by integrating information related to social relationships, social commerce factors, and domain background knowledge. In this study, knowledge graphs are used to represent and visualize the entities and relationships related to social commerce, while inductive logic programming techniques are used to discover implicit information that can be used to interpret the information behaviors and intentions of the users. Evaluation tests confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, the feasibility of using knowledge graphs and knowledge-based data mining techniques in the social commerce environment is also confirmed.

A framework for antecedents of trust in social commerce

Trust is essential in social commerce environment, where consumers rely on feedback and advice that they collect from social platforms. Despite the importance of trust in virtual environments, there are a limited number of studies in this field. Research need to identify the main drivers that establish trust in social commerce domain. To this end, this study reviewed the literature related to trust in social commerce environment and proposed a framework for the antecedents of trust in social commerce. The proposed framework suggests two main components: social networking site and social company. The results supported nine hypotheses out of ten excluding the relationship between perceived-ease-of-use (PEOU) and content quality. Word-of-mouth, communication, perceived ability, after sale service, trust in transaction, and perceived usefulness were found as key factors that significantly impacted trust in social commerce. The model explained 33.2% of the variance in trust in social commerce.

The impact of atmospheric cues on consumers’ approach and avoidance behavioral intentions in social commerce websites

Approach and avoidance are typical behavioral tendencies of consumers when exposed to a new environment. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, this study investigates the effects of atmospheric cues on consumers' approach and avoidance intentions in social commerce environments. We elucidate the interaction mechanisms between atmospheric cues (task, aesthetic and social cues) and consumers' evaluations through the lens of perceived affordances. Then we investigate how three types of perceived affordances (utilitarian, hedonic and connective) influence consumers’ approach and avoidance behavioral intentions. A three-way factorial experiment provides strong evidence that task cues, aesthetic cues and social cues elicit perceived utilitarian, hedonic and connective affordances, respectively. Approach behavioral intentions were affected by all three types of perceived affordances, yet avoidance intentions were only affected by perceived utilitarian and hedonic affordances. This paper discusses both theoretical and practical implications for social commerce research.

Towards building a value co-creation circle in social commerce

The rise of social commerce has brought several new challenges for firms and reshaped the way people purchase products and services. Firms are struggling to co-create value with customers to identify their needs and offer innovative products. To address these challenges, this study proposes a value co-creation circle and explores the key factors for developing a successful value co-creation circle on social commerce platforms. A case study of a taxi company in Taiwan was conducted. Data was collected from face-to-face interviews with the managers and analysed using Google Analytics. The proposed value co-creation circle not only creates benefits from network externality by the growth in membership, but also enhances service quality in the social commerce platform. This study explores a new perspective of the value co-creation circle in the social commerce environment that allows practitioners to develop a value circulation by network externality and co-create value with customers.

Factors Affecting Online Impulse Buying: Evidence from Chinese Social Commerce Environment

First, the purpose of this study is to examine the impact of situational variables, scarcity and serendipity, on online impulse buying (OIB) in Chinese social commerce (SC) environment. Second, the study further assesses the moderating role of five dimensions of hedonic shopping value. Data were gathered from 671 online shoppers who come from two metropolitan cities of China, Beijing, and Shanghai. Structure equation modeling utilized was generated by AMOS 23 version to test the study hypotheses. The results confirm that situational factors positively influence the online impulse buying among Chinese online shoppers in SC environment. Four dimensions of hedonic shopping value (social shopping, relaxation shopping, adventure shopping and idea shopping) positively moderate the relationship between serendipity and OIB; value shopping is insignificant with moderation effect. The finding is helpful to the online retailers and SC web developers by recommending them to take the scarcity and serendipity in their consideration. These factors have the potential to motivate the consumers to initiate the hedonic shopping aptitude to urge to buy impulsively. Unlike the previous work which remained unsuccessful in incorporating all factors into one study, this study has incorporated irrational and unplanned consumption along with rational and planned one in the same research.

A framework for antecedents of trust in social commerce

Trust is essential in social commerce environment, where consumers rely on feedback and advice that they collect from social platforms. Despite the importance of trust in virtual environments, there are a limited number of studies in this field. Research need to identify the main drivers that establish trust in social commerce domain. To this end, this study reviewed the literature related to trust in social commerce environment and proposed a framework for the antecedents of trust in social commerce. The proposed framework suggests two main components: social networking site and social company. The results supported nine hypotheses out of ten excluding the relationship between perceived-ease-of-use (PEOU) and content quality. Word-of-mouth, communication, perceived ability, after sale service, trust in transaction, and perceived usefulness were found as key factors that significantly impacted trust in social commerce. The model explained 33.2% of the variance in trust in social commerce.

Consumers’ impulsive buying behavior of restaurant products in social commerce

PurposeFirst, this paper aims to investigate the impact of impulsiveness on two types of shopping value (e.g. utilitarian and hedonic value) and the urge to buy restaurant products and services impulsively in social commerce environments. Second, the study assesses the impact of situational factors (e.g. scarcity and serendipity) on individuals’ shopping values.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 332 participants. By using PLS-graph 3.0, structural equation modeling was conducted. Furthermore, a hierarchical regression model was conducted for testing the mediating and moderating effects.FindingsThe results indicate that impulsiveness is a strong predictor for two types of shopping value (hedonic and utilitarian) and the urge to buy impulsively. While the hedonic shopping value was found to have a significant influence on the urge to buy impulsively, utilitarian value was not. Scarcity was moderator in the relationships between impulsiveness and both types of shopping value, whereas serendipity was found to moderate only the relationship between impulsiveness and the utilitarian shopping value.Practical implicationsThe findings show that the marketing managers and application developers of social commerce should place their focus on scarcity and serendipity to stimulate consumers in having a hedonic shopping value so to have an urge to buy impulsively.Originality/valueFirst, although most previous studies focused on only rational or planned consumption, this study focused on irrational and unplanned consumption as well. Second, the authors assessed the role of situational factors (scarcity and serendipity) occurring in social commerce and asserted that these factors moderate the relationship between consumers’ shopping values and their urge to buy impulsively.

Social interaction-based consumer decision-making model in social commerce: The role of word of mouth and observational learning

Social commerce mediated by social media and social network platforms has led to the development of new business models in e-commerce and digitized the consumer decision journey. Social interaction is considered as a prerequisite for successful social commerce since consumers now expect an interactive and social experience while making purchase decisions. Drawing on word of mouth (WOM) and observational learning theories, we conceptualize social interactions in social commerce environments into two forms: WOM communication and observing other consumers’ purchases, and examine their impact on consumer purchase intention and actual purchase behavior. Analyzing primary data (n=217) collected from surveyed active consumers within social commerce sites at two stages (pre-purchase and post-purchase), we found that positive and negative valence WOM, WOM content, and observing other consumers’ purchases significantly affect consumers’ intention to buy a product, thereby increasing the likelihood of actual buying and sharing product information with others on social commerce sites.

Does Social Interaction Affect Consumer Decisions on Social Commerce Sites

Owing to the growing popularity of social media, online business models have shifted from traditional e-commerce that focuses on one-click buying and one-way browsing to social commerce that enables consumers to digitize their purchase decision journey by establishing two-way communications and sound collaborative relationships with other consumers. Drawing on word of mouth (WOM) and observational learning theories, we conceptualize social interactions in social commerce environments into two forms: WOM communication and observing other consumers’ purchases, and examine their impact on consumer purchase intention and actual purchase behavior. Analyzing primary data collected from surveyed active consumers within social commerce sites at two stages (pre-purchase and post-purchase), we found that positive and negative valence WOM, WOM content, and observing other consumers’ purchases significantly affect consumers’ intention to buy a product, thereby increasing the likelihood of actual buying and sharing product information with others on social commerce sites.

Model for individual information privacy disclosure in social commerce environment

The buying and selling of goods and services are no longer limited to a general website or a physical store as social networks, such as Facebook or Pinterest, are heavily focusing on social commerce. Prior studies have analysed impact of trust and culture on social commerce, design and interface aspects of it, and intention to use social commerce by general people. Based on a review of literature on information disclosure intention, and Communication Privacy Management theory, this study develops a model. This study is motivated by the fundamental premise that intention to self-disclose in social commerce is affected by disposition to privacy, online privacy concern and privacy apathy. I analysed data collected from 170 samples using the SmartPLS and AMOS. An empirical test reveals that shoppers' information disclosure intention is driven by disposition to privacy, the fairness of information exchange and privacy apathy.

An Intelligent Web Digital Image Metadata Service Platform for Social Curation Commerce Environment

Information management includes multimedia data management, knowledge management, collaboration, and agents, all of which are supporting technologies for XML. XML technologies have an impact on multimedia databases as well as collaborative technologies and knowledge management. That is, e-commerce documents are encoded in XML and are gaining much popularity for business-to-business or business-to-consumer transactions. Recently, the internet sites, such as e-commerce sites and shopping mall sites, deal with a lot of image and multimedia information. This paper proposes an intelligent web digital image information retrieval platform, which adopts XML technology for social curation commerce environment. To support object-based content retrieval on product catalog images containing multiple objects, we describe multilevel metadata structures representing the local features, global features, and semantics of image data. To enable semantic-based and content-based retrieval on such image data, we design an XML-Schema for the proposed metadata. We also describe how to automatically transform the retrieval results into the forms suitable for the various user environments, such as web browser or mobile device, using XSLT. The proposed scheme can be utilized to enable efficient e-catalog metadata sharing between systems, and it will contribute to the improvement of the retrieval correctness and the user’s satisfaction on semantic-based web digital image information retrieval.

Disclosing too much? Situational factors affecting information disclosure in social commerce environment

The buying and selling of goods and services are no longer limited to a general website or a physical store as social networks, such as Facebook or Pinterest, are heavily focusing on social commerce. Prior studies have analyzed impact of trust and culture on social commerce, design and interface aspects of it, and intention to use social commerce by general people. Our study is informed by the literature on information disclosure intention, and Communication Privacy Management theory and is motivated by the fundamental premise that intention to self-disclose in social commerce is affected by perceived ownership of information, privacy apathy, the risks and benefits of disclosure and fairness of information exchange. We analyzed data collected from 252 samples using the scenario method. The results show that shoppers’ information disclosure intention is driven by the fairness of information exchange, privacy benefits and privacy apathy.

Customer attribution of service failure and its impact in social commerce environment

As social commerce gains popularity, companies need to address service failure cases that cause expansive consumer damage. While existing literature has examined service failure in the traditional e–commerce market, the unique consumer relational characteristics of social commerce makes it difficult to directly extend current understanding to this business model. Founded on the attribution–affect–behaviour model, this study examines consumer–perceived source of service failure and its impact on negative emotions and post–purchase behaviours. A survey of 300 active social commerce users who have experienced at least one service failure shows that consumers blame failed incidents on social commerce companies and merchants. Regret and disappointment lead to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfied consumers spread negative e–WOM and have lower tendency to repurchase from the same social commerce sites. This study underscores the importance of close collaboration between social commerce companies and merchants in delivering satisfactory services to customers.

소셜커머스에서 사이트 밀착도의 역할과 선행 요인에 관한 연구

Abstract http://dx.doi.org/10.9716/KITS.2013.12.3.023 논문투고일：2013년 03월 05일 논문수정완료일：2013년 09월 10일 논문게재확정일：2013년 09월 16일* 본 논문은 2013년도 서울여자대학교 교내학술특별연구비의 지원을 받았음.** 서울여자대학교 사회과학대학 경영학과 조교수Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce that involves using s ocial media, and user contributions to assist in the online buying and selling of products and services. Given the rapid growth of social commerce sites such as Groupon, Ticketmonster, and Coupang, it has become critical to understand customer purchasing decision-making processes in the social commerce environment. This study develo ped a theoretical model to examine the role of social commerce site's stickiness in customers' repurchasing decision processes. This study identifies price attribute, variety of selection, shopping enjoyment, and anger as the key factors of social commerce site's stickiness. Data collected from 164 users who had more purchasing experiences with social commerce for more than 7 months were empirically tested against the research model. The analysis results indicate that social commerce site's stickiness plays an important role in enhancing customer's purchasing behavior. Moreover, price attribute and shopping enjoyment significantly influence social commerce site's stickiness, whereas anger does not significantly affect consumer purchasing decision-making processes. However, contrary to our expectation, variety of selection negatively influences social commerce site's stickiness. The theoretical and practica l implications of the findings are described.

Intention to purchase on social commerce websites across cultures: A cross-regional study

This study investigates the moderating effect of culture and the mediating effect of trust in a social network community on the relationship between social interactions and purchase intention. Trust transference theory, social interactions, and Hofstede's cultural dimensions are considered. The findings from the research support the moderating effect of culture and the mediating role of trust in a social network community on the relationship between social interactions (in terms of closeness and familiarity) and intention to purchase in social commerce environments. In addition, the mediating effect of trust in a social network community is conditional on culture. The findings also suggest that trust in a social network community may be attributed to the closeness and familiarity developed among its members resulting from social interactions. The results presented herein are in line with the trust transference theory. The empirical study results also suggest that social commerce market penetration in East Asia may have relatively fewer barriers to overcome and be more likely to succeed than in the Latin America region.

소셜커머스 환경에서 소비자들의 충동구매에 관한 연구: 플로우와 감정의 역할

Given to the prevalence of social commerce such as Groupon, Ticketmonster, and Coupang, it has become critical to understand customer purchasing behavior in social commerce environments. When consumers make purchasing decisions in social commerce, they often act impulsively. This is because social commerce is a deal-of-the-day website that features discounted gift certificates usable at local companies. However, the vast majority of social commerce research has viewed consumer decision-making as a rational process. This study develops a theoretical framework to investigate key drivers of customer's impulsive purchasing in social commerce. This study identifies flow, positive emotion, negative emotion, social commerce attractiveness, and discounted price as the key antecedents of impulsive purchasing. Data collected from 164 users who had prior purchasing experiences with social commerce were empirically tested against the research model using partial least squares analysis. The analysis results indicate that flow plays an important role in facilitating customers' impulsive purchasing in social commerce environments. Moreover, the findings show the exact roles of positive emotion, negative emotion, social commerce attractiveness, and discounted price on consumer's impulsive purchasing.