Abstract

Because of the rapid assimilation of social media into the conventional e-commerce setting, the focus has switched from traditional e-commerce to social commerce. To effectively apply social media methods to drive up purchases in social commerce, practitioners and academics must have a firm grasp of the drivers and causes accounting for the acceptability of social commerce among the people. With the use of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Social Exchange Theory (SET), this research analysed Chinese consumers' propensity to make purchases via social marketplaces. Structured equation modelling (SEM) with the help of AMOS statistical software was used to analyse the results of a questionnaire that yielded 632 valid replies. The study's findings show that trusting views, such confidence in social networks, the integrity of the seller, and the seller's generosity, significantly influence the desire to make a transaction via social commerce. In social commerce, however, buyer intent was not significantly affected by the seller's expertise. Other findings indicated that consumer social commerce experience significantly predicted social network trust, seller honesty, seller competence, and seller kindness in social commerce exchanges. The major contributions of this study to the literature of e-commerce and social commerce are the validations of the significant impact of consumer experience on the four-trusting belief factors (trust in social networks, the integrity of the seller, the competency of the seller, and the benevolence of the seller).

Description