Factors influencing consumer intention in social commerce adoption

Abstract

Purpose Social media remarkably changed the way of interaction between the consumers and organizations. The increased acceptance of social media has given rise to social commerce (s-commerce) and s-commerce usage is gradually increasing over the last few years. The progressive development of technologies suggests that s-commerce will become the mainstream for marketing and a literature survey indicates that there have not been many studies in this area. The purpose of this paper is to predict the factors influencing consumer intention towards the adoption of s-commerce. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a survey approach with reference to important behavioural factors such as satisfaction, ethics, trust, enjoyment/easiness, social pressure and awareness. The research model was developed to be in line with the available literature. The data were collected using a five-point Likert scale and the research model was tested using least square regression. Findings The results showed that user intention is significantly and positively related to perceived trust, enjoyment/easiness, social pressure, satisfaction and awareness. Also, “intention” was found to be a significant mediating factor for actual usage. Research limitations/implications First, the questionnaire was a “snap-shot” instead of longitudinal study. Second, future research should use other moderating variables that may affect the usage of social media. Also the study could apply a variant of research methods to include other techniques such as interviews, which allow for deeper understanding of the problem and issues. Practical implications Social media represents an important platform for electronic commerce and has one of the most metamorphic impacts on business. Therefore, investigating the usage of s-commerce with reference to important behavioural factors could provide valuable information for companies in establishing policies and strategies. It could also be useful for management studies and researchers in understanding the consumers’ attitude towards usage of social media for commercial purposes. Social implications S-commerce creates opportunities for firms. Based on findings this research provides insights with major implications for marketers, who would like to generate direct sales on social network platforms. Originality/value Existing literature focusses largely on the effectiveness of social media. Only a handful has endeavoured to analyse s-commerce systems and the literature on consumers’ behaviour in using s-commerce is not mature yet. This study is one of the few studies in this field, and aims to predict and explain the user acceptance of social media for commercial purposes.

Social media technology for the strategic positioning of small and medium‐sized enterprises: Empirical evidence from Kenya

“…Such digital economies are premised on the global network of communications. Consequently, technologies that promote the interconnection and interdependence of people such as social media have taken center stage in the business arena as a survival tool (Akman & Mishra, ; Boswijk, ). The strategies employed by businesses have had to change so as to enable businesses to exploit the opportunities offered by the digital economy.…”

“…Several studies have indicated that customers reward businesses that have and maintain a social media presence by actively creating conversations with those firms and obtaining a better understanding of their products and/or services, thus, in many cases, becoming their brand ambassadors (Akman & Mishra, ; Chung & Park, ; Rahman, Yaacob, & Radzi, ). Most social media platforms offer both synchronous (parties engage at the same time) and asynchronous (parties engage at different times) forms of interaction.…”

“…Business owners globally are rapidly realizing the potential of using social media technology. Accordingly, its adoption by the business community has shown exponential growth in recent years (Akman & Mishra, ; Chung & Park, ; Jones, Borgman, & Ulusoy, ; Misirlis & Vlachopoulou, ). Through social media technologies, businesses have, among other things, sought to extend their market share, establish new relationships with customers and suppliers, produce new products and/or services, and improve efficiencies in their functions (Jones et al, ; Misirlis & Vlachopoulou, ).…”

“…As the complexity of the market environment increases, so too does the need for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) to devise new innovative ways of strategically positioning themselves. In recent years, there have been several advances in the use of social media technology in business in order to achieve different business goals (Akman & Mishra, ; Misirlis & Vlachopoulou, ; Nicholson, Nugroho, & Rangaswamy, ; Parveen, Jaafar, & Ainin, ). Social media technology enables customers and businesses to interact and engage in two‐way communication in which both the customer and the business are active participants in the generation and dissemination of the content.…”

Social media brand engagement practices

“…Social media plays a cardinal role in the consumer's life (Akman and Mishra, 2017;Prado-Gascó et al, 2017) while serving as a conduit for brand connection and engagement (Dimitriu and Guesalaga, 2017;Osei-Frimpong and McLean, 2018). For instance, Solem and Pedersen (2016) note that social media channels provide a novel communication platform to encourage customers' participation in both social exchanges and brand engagement practices.…”