The influence of peer characteristics and technical features of a social shopping website on a consumer’s purchase intention

Xi Hu, Qian Huang, Xuepan Zhong, Robert M. Davison and Dingtao Zhao

International Journal of Information Management, 2016, vol. 36, issue 6, 1218-1230

Abstract: This paper aims to reveal the influence of peer-member characteristics and technical features of a social shopping website (SSW) on consumers’ purchase intentions. Following the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, this study operationalizes “stimulus” as website features and peers’ qualities, “organism” as experiential shopping values, and “response” as the purchase intention of users. The research model is empirically tested with survey data from 313 real SSW consumers. The results suggest that similarity, benevolence and expertise of peer members in the community and the website’s support for recommendations positively impact shoppers’ perceived utilitarian value of the SSW. Moreover, users’ perception of peers’ similarity and benevolence positively affect their sense of social value of using the platform. Finally, both perceived utilitarian and social value predict individuals’ consumption intentions.

Keywords: Social shopping website; Social commerce; Stimulus-organism-response model; Purchase intention; Shopping values; Socio-technical perspective (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401216300913
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ininma:v:36:y:2016:i:6:p:1218-1230

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2016.08.005

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Information Management is currently edited by Yogesh K. Dwivedi

More articles in International Journal of Information Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().