A Model for Understanding Social Commerce

This paper evaluates the effects of the social web on various stages of purchase decision making and proposes a model for understanding social commerce.

Abstract

When it comes to purchasing products and services, customers usually display different decision making behaviors although most agree that decisions can be influenced by other people. Since the social web provides a discussion platform for customers, it can be leveraged by companies to lean the discussion to their advantage and influence customers ‟ purchase decisions. Recently, an effort to study social commerce was started, with a focus on extracting value from the social web for both businesses and customers. In this paper we aim to contribute to that effort by evaluating the effects of the social web on various stages of purchase decision making and we propose a model for understanding social commerce.