Let's Buy With Social Commerce Platforms Through Social Media Influencers: An Indian Consumer Perspective

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on the retail industry around the globe, including in the vast market of India. The response to the pandemic required stores to close and develop new ways to approach shoppers more efficiently. The worldwide usage of social media enabled the growth of social commerce (s-commerce). Influencers on s-commerce platforms use live broadcasting on their channels to promote endorsed products. The features of s-commerce influencers enhance users' trust in the online community and s-commerce intention, impacting their online purchasing intentions. In this study, we collected data from 379 Indian consumers to test the measurement and structural model using Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to verify our conceptual framework. We found that trust in the online community and s-commerce intention are antecedents of online purchase intentions. Additionally, the results demonstrate that trust in Indian social media influencers and s-commerce intentions are vital for boosting consumers' purchase intention, verifying the hypothesized mediating effect of these factors. Based on these results, we suggest several managerial actions that could enhance the value of s-commerce for franchises, executives, e-retailers, and e-marketplaces.

“I think exactly the same”—trust in SMIs and online purchase intention: a moderation mediation analysis using PLS-SEM

“…The findings showed that customers' intentions to make online purchases are significantly positively impacted by trust in SMIs. Thus, this study establishes that followers’ trust is paramount for any online shopping; very few research studies have considered the impact of SMIs on customers’ online buying behaviour (Alam et al. , 2022; Zhang et al.…”

“…The findings showed that customers' intentions to make online purchases are significantly positively impacted by trust in SMIs. Thus, this study establishes that followers' trust is paramount for any online shopping; very few research studies have considered the impact of SMIs on customers' online buying behaviour (Alam et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2020). Trust in the influencer also has a direct impact on the credibility of the influencer's message (Mart ınez-L opez et al, 2020), indicating that trust is the foundation that creates reliability for any post done by the influencers on a social media platform.…”

“…Additionally, a prior study with reference to social media influencers marketing has highlighted the significance of trust which is considered to have a significantly positive impact on purchase intention (Alkan and Ulas, 2023;Saima and Khan, 2020). Furthermore, in the regard of Indian social media influencers, a recent study has examined that trust in the community members is considered to be a positive influence on online purchase intention (Alam et al, 2022). Additionally, when existing research on social media communication was examined, trust was discovered to be one of the factors influencing social media purchase intention (Sulthana and Vasantha, 2021).…”

“…Online information is seen as a crucial factor in shaping consumer behaviour (Khan et al, 2023(Khan et al, , 2024Shin and Hwang, 2017;Shin and Biocca, 2017). With the rise of web 2.0 technologies and the development of the Internet, community trust and social commerce were major determinants of consumers' tendency to shop online (Alam et al, 2022). When acquiring a product, customers in online shopping anticipate, explore and carefully weigh their alternatives.…”

“…Innumerable research has demonstrated the significant effect of social media marketing activities on consumers' purchase intentions (Arli, 2017;Chakraborty and Bhat, 2018;Ibrahim et al, 2020;Loureiro and Sarmento, 2019;Ott et al, 2016) and considering social media's immense popularity, academics and marketers have conducted extensively studied social media, celebrity endorsement and online marketing (Kumar et al, 2020). However, studies on SMIs marketing are very limited especially in Indian context (Vrontis et al, 2021) and very few research has explored the impact of SMIs on consumers' online purchase intention (Alam et al, 2022). But these studies have neglected to consider the mediating role played by Post credibility in affecting the consumers' online purchase intention, in context of influencer marketing (Borges-Tiago et al, 2023;Chakraborty and Bhat, 2018;Chin et al, 2020;Hayes and Carr, 2015;Saima and Khan, 2020;Shoukat et al, 2023) and the moderating role of homophily in influencer marketing (Gupta et al, 2021;Muda and Hamzah, 2021;Xu et al, 2021b).…”