Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of perceived benefits, i.e. utilitarian value, hedonic value and social value, as well as perceived risk, on purchase intention in social commerce context. Design/methodology/approach To cast light on the factors motivating users’ intention to purchase in the context of social commerce, data of 277 users of social commerce in China were collected via an online survey. Findings Results show that satisfaction significantly and positively affects users’ purchase intention in social commerce context. In addition, utilitarian, hedonic and social values have significant and positive impacts on satisfaction and purchase intention; and utilitarian value is found to be the most salient factor influencing purchase intention, while hedonic value has the greatest effect on satisfaction. Moreover, perceived risk significantly and negatively affects satisfaction. Originality/value Extant research on social commerce has mainly focused on investigating how the general perceived value affects user behavior, but has less considered different dimensions of perceived value. Moreover, prior studies have explored the roles of utilitarian and hedonic values on user behavior; however, there is a lack of research on the effect of social value. The current study attempts to fill these research gaps.

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With currently over one billion monthly active users, the Chinese social media and multipurpose application WeChat (, Wēixìn, micro-message) has become one of the world’s most popular social media platforms. Despite its enormous number of users in Asia, WeChat is still not well known in Western countries. Against this background, the present review aims to provide the reader with a comprehensive overview on the functionality of this application, comparison with other popular applications such as Facebook/WhatsApp and previous research. Although WeChat has become an integral part of everyday life for many users, research has only recently begun to examine the impact of this development on the societal and individual levels. The present review summarizes the literature on this topic with a focus on the motives to engage in using the app and potential detrimental effects of excessive use. In the context of the growing popularity and increasing usage times of the app – in particular in Asian countries – future research seems warranted to examine systematically how social media platforms such as WeChat will affect interpersonal communication behavior, well-being, and mental health. The direct comparison of WeChat’s influence on the mentioned variables compared with its competitors Facebook and WhatsApp often used in Western countries will also be of high importance.

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