Abstract:

Social commerce poses promising opportunities for businesses. With a very minimum cost of marketing, sales orientation, and commercial applications of Web 2.0, social commerce has become a culture. However, with the Internet growth, robustness of mobile technology, low barrier to entry and thousands of product choices, social commerce can easily disappear like many other e-commerce sites when Internet bubble burst. Social commerce competition is very intense. Sustaining social commerce is a very challenging task, especially for small business operators. But suggestions by scientific empirical investigations have yet to address the issue. Therefore, a study was conducted to understand the strategies that have been adopted by small businesses to survive the extreme competition. Data was collected from eight social commerce operators that served as a focus group. The results suggest customer focus, innovative business model and legality and trust are the essences for the continuance and sustainment of social commerce.