How social commerce constructs influence customers' social shopping intention? An empirical study of a social commerce website

Social commerce takes advantage of social networking capabilities and provides features that encourage customers to share personal experiences. Because social commerce has evolved quickly, it has not been studied as extensively as e-commerce and social networking. Extant research on social commerce has revealed only a few of its characteristics. Applying a stimulus-organism-response model, this study investigated the influences of social commerce sites on customers' virtual experiences and on their intentions to purchase products. The findings indicated that social commerce constructs exerted positive and significant effects on social interactions in terms of cognitive states (social presence, informational support, and emotional support) and affective states (familiarity and closeness), but they did not exert significant influences on social shopping intention. Furthermore, social presence and informational support influenced intention to trust in product recommendations. However, neither emotional support nor familiarity exerted significant influence on trust in product recommendations. Moreover, familiarity was significantly affected by informational support and emotional support but not by social presence. Finally, familiarity exerted a positive and significant effect on closeness, which further exerted a positive and significant effect on trust in product recommendations. Trust in product recommendations exerted a significant effect on social shopping intention, whereas informational support did not. These findings explain how customers use social networking sites to aid purchasing decisions and assist online vendors in developing advertising and promotion strategies.