What Drives Social Commerce: The Role of Social Support and Relationship Quality

An empirical study on a popular microblog to investigate how social factors such as social support and relationship quality affect the user's intention of future participation in social commerce indicates that both factors play a critical role.

Abstract

Social commerce is emerging as an important platform in e-commerce, primarily due to the increased popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedln, and Twitter. To understand the user's social sharing and social shopping intention in social networking Web sites, we conducted an empirical study on a popular microblog to investigate how social factors such as social support and relationship quality affect the user's intention of future participation in social commerce. The results indicate that both factors play a critical role. Social support and Web site quality positively influence the user's intention to use social commerce and to continue using a social networking site. These effects are found to be mediated by the quality of the relationship between the user and the social networking Web site. Our findings not only help researchers interpret why social commerce has become popular, but also assist practitioners in developing better social commerce strategy.