The Study Of Customer Loyalty In Social Commerce Based On Social Support Theory

In recent years,the combination of e-commerce and social media based on Web2.0 has spawned the rapid development of social business,which is also the focus of the current development of e-commerce.This emerging network market has becomes the hotspots of multi-disciplinary research areas.With the spring of social commerce research,many scholars focus on the study of the concept of social commerce,the research of theoretical framework,business model,website' design and user behaviors etc.The research of user behaviors is the most extensive research which can be divided into three groups: customer participating intention,customer purchasing intention and customer loyalty in social commerce.But there existing a big gap in practice.For example,some studies have imitated the research methods of customer behavior in e-commerce to the social commerce,or just from technology or user experience respectively to analysis customer behavior,they can't compare which factors such as technology or social factors exert more impact on customer behaviors.Therefore,it's important to focus on customer behavior from both technology and social factors.Discussing the customer behavioral changes in the new e-commerce environment is beneficial for the enterprise to maintain a better relationship with customers and reduce the opportunity cost.In this dissertation,the method of literature research and structural equation model is adopted to construct the theoretical framework of the user behavior in social commerce based on social support theory.The main contents and outcome of the dissertation are:(1)Combing the existing research of "social commerce","customer behaviors in social commerce" and “social support theory” to clarify the basic research issues.Then,aiming at the shortcomings of the existing research,the dissertation puts forward the S-O-R model of customer behavior under the social commerce context with both technology and social factors.(2)Choosing the typical community-based social commerce platform—“???”to conduct the research.Designing the first questionnaire in social commerce context to collect data of users'behaviors and then testing the structural model.The empirical results show that:(1)Social support and website quality have direct effect on customer behavior,but the website quality'effect size is smaller than social support;(2)Social support and website quality have a positive effect on the intention to continue using the website and the intention to conduct social commerce;(3)Relationship quality has a partial mediating role in enhancing customer loyalty and the intention for conducting social commerce;(4)Outgoing customer focus more on the social factors than introvert users.(3)Based on the research results of this dissertation,this dissertation puts forward the corresponding improvement countermeasures and suggestions for the development of social commerce.They are:(1)Social factors is significant for customer participating intention and customer loyalty,website should to provide a supportive environment for customer interactions in order to let them feel closer to one another and more confortable in exchanging information;(2)Maintaining and enhancing website quality is also a basic requirement for social commerce to improve customer experience;(3)Website should focus on the convenience and effectiveness of obtaining social support for exocentric users and satisfies their experience of website technologies for endocentric users as well.This dissertation discuss customer behavior form both technical and social factors which enriched the theoretical basis of customer behavior in social commerce.Based on the research results of this dissertation,this dissertation puts forward the corresponding improvement countermeasures and suggestions for the development of social commerce.The enterprise should create a better communication environment for customer in order to promote the formation of social capital between customers and enhance website quality to ensure a basic environment to conduct social commerce.