This study develops a trust mechanism based on trust transfer theory in the context of customer-to-customer (C2C) social commerce. Based on combined data from 206 sellers and consumers, this study finds that customers have continuous purchase intentions when they trust sellers and brands at the same time and that consumers generate brand trust due to trust in sellers. In addition, with informational and emotional support, consumers can generate trust in individual sellers. Finally, promotion, which is a common strategy used by C2C sellers, will damage the trust transfer from sellers to the brand.

Introduction

C2C social commerce refers to customers selling products to other customers through social media (Chen et al., 2016). The widespread application and development of social networking sites, such as WeChat, promoted the emergence of this type of social commerce (Liang and Turban, 2011). At present, C2C social commerce has achieved rapid development, and its business scale has been expanding. China is a country with a very large scale of C2C social commerce. By 2017, China’s WeChat C2C social commerce industry practitioners exceeded 20 million, and the industry’s overall market size is approximately 76 billion USD (ZhiYan Consulting, 2018). Chinese consumers spend approximately 78 min per day on social commerce (Liu et al., 2016). Engaging in C2C social commerce anywhere, anytime, via social networks is becoming more common. Previous research on C2C social commerce mainly focuses on online impulse buying (Chen et al., 2016), C2C service quality (Leeraphong et al., 2017) and other aspects. However, many unknown aspects remain regarding the sales mechanism of C2C social commerce. For example, how can a consumer believe an individual who sells a product with an unknown brand? Obviously, trust is critical in this process. The purpose of the current paper is to analyze the mechanisms of trust in the context of C2C social commerce. Trust is a key factor affecting C2C social commerce because transactions happen between consumers and consumers, and the consumer needs to believe the product with an unknown brand sold by individual sellers is reliable (Gefen and Straub, 2004). If the consumer does not trust the seller, he or she will perceive social complexity, vulnerability, and risk in C2C social commerce (Lu et al., 2016).