How Social Network Characteristics Affect Users’ Trust and Purchase Intention

Abstract

These days, young college students cannot imagine life without social network service (SNS). They access and browse social network sites everyday to get information, find friends, enjoy entertainment, and express their opinion. Despite an extraordinary amount of time consumed on SNS by young adults, there have not been extensive researches and discussion of social networking services and their impact on purchase intention. The aim of this research is to discover how SNS characteristics affect SNS users' trust and purchase intention in Chinese SNS Weibo. Regression analysis from the SPSS 13.0 program was used to conduct the research. This research identified the social network characteristic (informativeness) that affects trust in Weibo. This article also suggests variables (trust and informativeness) that have an effect on the purchase intention on the Weibo. Thus, we hope this study will help practitioners and companies that can formulate appropriate marketing strategies on social network platforms when selling their products and service.

Understanding the Effects of eWOM Antecedents on Online Purchase Intention in China

“…Accordingly, consumers place excellent value on eWOM opinions from close contacts, family, and key opinion leaders from electronic media. Therefore, marketers target and segment customers more efficiently within these platforms, including the understanding of customers' attitudes [4,57]. Organizations and individuals have adopted social media usage [58], and have altered the discussion's nature, facilitating trades to connect with customers and build intense and increased sales [1,59].…”

“…Social media has rapidly become one of the world's leading platforms for distributing information between marketers and consumers worldwide [1,2]. With the fast development of social networking sites, smartphone acceptance, internet speed, and wireless network coverage, social media users can now interact with their friends and accelerate the exchange and retrieval of information via their mobile phones and tablets [3,4]. According to the statistical data reported by the end of December 2018, nearly 98% of people in China have access to the Internet via smartphones and other social networking sites; out of those, 48% of people purchase online fashion products [5].…”

Tell me your age and I tell you what you trust: the moderating effect of generations

“…This information generated on social commerce websites increases trust (Hajli et al, 2014). It has been shown that information provided by users on websites positively affects trust (Filieri, 2015;Han, 2014;Kuan and Bock, 2007;Bock et al, 2012). Because Z-ers and Y-ers seem to be most active on the Internet, since they are used to online environments, it is assumed that they will tend more toward user-generated information.…”

“…On the one hand, in social commerce contexts, trust is increased by social WOM – that is, the information shared by users. Indeed, several authors have stated that user-generated information has a positive effect on trust (Filieri, 2015; Han, 2014; Kuan and Bock, 2007; Bock et al , 2012). On the other, users can develop trust based on website content provided by the company (Chen et al , 2015; Beldad et al , 2010; Kim and Park, 2013).…”

Performance of Factors Influencing Customers’ Purchase Intention Towards Online SNSs Sellers

“…Among the challenges of online SNSs sellers as opposed to established and well-known firms is to gain trust and reputation from customers to participate in the selling and buying activities. Studies have investigated the factors that influence customers' purchase intention from various dimensions and theories (Han, 2014;Hajli, 2015;Che and Cheung, 2017;Hsu et al, 2017;Pothong and Sathitwiriyawong, 2017;Chen, Hsiao, and Wu, 2018). However, there is still insufficient research specifically study on the customers' purchase intention in social commerce (Esmaeili and Hashemi G., 2019).…”