مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد تبدیل تجارت الکترونیکی به تجارت اجتماعی – الزویر 2018

By taking advantage of social networking capabilities, social commerce provides features that encourage customers to share their personal experiences. The popularity of online social networks has driven the purchase decisions of buyers on social commerce sites, but few studies have explored why consumers switch between e-commerce (product-centered) and social (social-centered) commerce sites. In applying the push–pull–mooring model, the objective of this study was to gain an understanding of specifically how push, pull, and mooring factors shape their switching intentions. The findings revealed that push effect, in terms of low transaction efficiency, drives customers away from e-commerce sites, whereas the pull effects, including social presence, social support, social benefit, and self-presentation, attract customers to social commerce sites. Moreover, mooring effects, including conformity and personal experience, strengthened consumers’ behavior in switching between e-commerce and social commerce sites. Besides, conformity was also found to moderate the influences of social presence, social support, social benefit, and efficiency on switching intention, whereas personal experience moderated the effects of social benefit, self-presentation, and efficiency on switching intention. Such an understanding assists online retailers in understanding online shoppers’ switching behaviors, and thus turning social interactions into profits and sales.

Introduction

The massive growth of e-commerce combined with the popularity of online social networks is having a profound impact on the global economy. Specifically, consumer shopping behaviors have undergone changes, and a novel type of e-commerce, called “social commerce,” is emerging (Sun et al., 2016). Social commerce adds e-commerce functionalities to social networks, thus helping people purchase goods and services from places to which they are already connected (Li et al., 2013). By taking advantage of social networking capabilities, social commerce provides features including comments and reviews, tags, and user profiles, which have been labeled as one form of “user-generated content” to encourage customers to share their personal experiences with what was purchased. Customers can seek ways of leveraging other people’s expertise or influence the purchasing behavior of other shoppers, not only that of passive information takers (Pagani & Mirab, 2011/2012). Specifically, social commerce has shifted the online shopping environment from one that is business oriented to one oriented around the user (Busalim, 2016). Compared with traditional product-centered online marketplaces with firm-provided information, social commerce focuses on social-centered and consumer-driven online marketplaces where social networking sites encourage their users to shop through social connections with friends (Shadkam & O’Hara, 2013). Because users on social networks are friends or indirect acquaintances and their information sharing seems relatively sincere compared with recommendations or reviews on shopping platforms that are provided by merchants, customers prefer information provided on the shopping platforms of social networking sites (Bai et al., 2015).