Effect of Social Commerce on Social Media Users

Abstract

This study puts forward a comprehensive model and investigates the impact of recommendations and referrals, information support, information sharing, forums and communities, and evidential social commerce influence on consumer propensity to engage in social commerce, using likes, shares, post reviews, and making purchases. Drawing on the social exchange theory and social penetration theory, it seeks to determine how social-oriented drivers (i.e., recommendations and referrals and information support) and individual-initiated drivers (i.e., information sharing and forums and communities) could better explain consumers’ social commerce intentions. Structural equation modeling was performed based on a sample of 263 social media users in Thailand. The results reveal that information support mediates the relationship between recommendations and referrals and evidential social commerce influence behavioral intention. The diffusion velocity of the marketing effect is manifested through customers’ social commerce intentions and behaviors, which helps managers identify the importance of maintaining a supportive atmosphere to nurture intimate member-to-member and member-to-provider relationships.