Why customers participate in social commerce activities? - A laddering analysis

TL;DR

This study investigates motivations for social commerce participation within a Malay lifestyle blogger community, revealing that relationships and social support significantly influence customer trust and engagement.

Contribution

It applies laddering techniques to uncover how community relationships and social support drive participation in social commerce, a novel approach in this context.

Findings

Community relationships are the primary motivator.

Social support enhances trust in social commerce.

Participants value social connections over commercial aspects.

Abstract

A new phenomenon emerging within virtual communities is a blurring between the social and commercial activities and motivations of participants. This paper explores motivations for participating in social commerce at a micro-business level between members of a virtual community of Malay lifestyle bloggers. The selected community was observed in order to understand the community and 21 participants were interviewed. We used laddering techniques to explore community attributes, the perceived consequences, and their links to the values of participants. We found that virtual community relationship was the main influential factor, and virtual community relationship contributed to the sense of social support as well as customers' trust in social commerce.