Abstract:

E-commerce companies are facing difficulties in garnering trust from modern customers, who are more involved than ever due to rapid growth of the internet. By incorporating social commerce, e-commerce companies may fulfill a desired social experience for customers and build long-term trust, among many other benefits like creating profit. However, despite the potential benefits of social commerce, there hasn’t been much empirical research on this topic. Thus, this study focuses on understanding relational factors, including social support, trust and commitment that affect customer purchase and sharing behavior in a social commerce context. This study particularly focuses on the company’s use of Instagram as a social commercial platform. This research uses data collected from 304 respondents. Data is analyzed by applying Structural Equation Modeling. The results show that one out of fourteen hypotheses that is not supported. Findings show that social support gives significant impact towards forming social commerce shopping and sharing intention.