Consumers social commerce intention and behavioural pattern

Abstract

Social commerce has experienced rapid growth in India in recent years. With evolving consumer preferences across various regions, it is essential to explore new factors and redefine existing ones that influence the social commerce landscape. This study identifies the factors that motivate consumers to engage in social commerce by undertaking a qualitative study on 16 participants. The qualitative analysis revealed seven key motivating factors: building consumer acumen, cognitive absorption, emotional gratification, beneficial synergies, benevolence trust, source credibility, and self-realization. Further, an online survey was conducted with 472 users of social commerce websites across various cities in India to assess the impact of social presence, social influence, and platform quality on social shopping and sharing intention, mediated by relationship quality and moderated by the type of social commerce platform; and also to examine consumer behavior patterns on social commerce platforms. Quantitative analysis, using PLS-SEM, showed that social influence and social commerce platform quality positively impact both social shopping and sharing intentions, whereas social presence does not have a significant effect and relationship quality plays a mediating role. Additionally, descriptive analysis undertaken using SPSS version 22 provided insights about consumer behavioural patterns. The findings offer theoretical insights by filling gaps in the existing literature and provide managerial implications for marketers to devise strategies for attracting, influencing, and retaining consumers in a competitive market. newline