The Effect Of Interactivity On WeChat Frends' Payment

Advances in Internet technology and the popularity of smart phones have created conditions for the diversified development of e-commerce.In the e-commerce payment,mobile payment allows users to utilize their smartphones to quickly complete fund transactions,which brings more practicality and convenience.According to i Research's survey data,in the second quarter of 2019,Alipay and Caifutong accounted for 93.7% of the market share in the third-party payment market,indicating that the two have huge market potential.Relying on Taobao and Tmall online shopping platforms,Alipay is in a favorable position in the third-party Internet payment transaction market.Unlike Alipay,Tenpay is mainly based on WeChat.Its technical characteristics and strong interactive attributes affect users' willingness to use WeChat Payment.The survey found that WeChat red envelopes and transfers are the core functions of WeChat payment.The amount and number of expenditures of the two accounts for 59.68% and57.8%,respectively.How to take advantage of WeChat's strong user base to make Tenpay gain a differentiated competitive advantage maybe pretty interesting.Almost all the existing studies regard WeChat Payment as a mobile payment tool,such as the technical characteristics(compatibility,usefulness,ease of use,testability,portability,etc.),individuals factors(innovativeness,absorptive capacity,habits,gender,etc.),the macro-social environment factors(subjective norms,etc.).These existing studies have laid the research foundation of this article,but there are still some areas to be improved.First,it does not distinguish WeChat Payment from ordinary mobile payment tools,especially the effect of interactivity.Second,whether the individual response affects users' behaviors is unkown.In order to explore the influence of social factors on using payment functions among WeChat friends,we reviewed relevant literature on social media and social commerce,compiled related research theories,influencing factors and research conclusions.Finally,some conclusions are as follows: the willingness to use social media mainly is based on the function of information acquisition and interpersonal relationship maintenance;interactivity is an important factor affecting individual cognition and emotions,which prompts users to make usage decisions;social theory(Social Capital Theory,Social Support Theory,Social Recognition Theory,etc.)is suitable for the research background in social media virtual communities,which provides a meaningful reference for this article.Combining the social media attributes of WeChat and the mobile payment technology features of WeChat Pay,this study defines the use of payment functions between WeChat friends as: one-to-one fund spending behaviors between users and their WeChat friends,including WeChat red envelopes and WeChat transfer.Based on the SOR theory,this paper constructs a research model of environmental stimulus-individual mechanism-using behaviors to explore the influencing factors of users' behaviors.Among them,the environmental stimulus includes four levels of interaction factors: User-WeChat Platform Interaction(complementarity),User-WeChat Payment System Interaction(system quality,ease of use,need relevance),User-Macro Social Environment Interaction(identification),and User-WeChat Friends Interaction(number of WeChat friends,number of private chat friends,number of moments I like,number of moments I comment,the likings of my moments,the comments in my moments).Secondly,the individual mechanism includes cognition(perceived usefulness,perceived compatibility,perceived economic risk)and emotion(enjoyment).On this basis,we collect data by questionnaires and interviews.Then,SPSS 22.0 software is used to verify model hypothesis and reach conclusions.The main conclusions of this article are as follows:(1)Individual cognition and emotion nearly have a significant impact on the use of payment functions among WeChat friends.Among them,perceived usefulness is the most comprehensive and strong influencing factor.Enjoyment and perceived economic risk have similar strengths,slightly weaker than perceived usefulness.While,perceived compatibility is insignificant.Specifically speaking,firstly,perceived usefulness positively affects the number of WeChat red envelopes issued,the number of WeChat transfers,the amount of money WeChat transferred;secondly,enjoyment significantly affects the amount of WeChat red envelopes issued;thirdly,perceived economic risk negatively acts on WeChat transfers.(2)Interaction significantly affects users' cognition and emotion.Among them,User-Macro Social Environment Interaction has the strongest positive effect on perceived usefulness,User-Payment System Interaction takes the second place,and User-WeChat Friend Interaction has the weakest effect.Then,User-WeChat Friend Interaction and User-Payment System Interaction will reduce perceived economic risks,and the former is stronger than the latter.While,User-Macro Social Environment Interaction and User-WeChat Platform Interaction will increase this risk perception,and the latter is weaker than the former.Meanwhile,User-Payment System Interaction has the greatest impact on pleasure,and User-Macro Social Environment Interaction is slightly lower than the former.However,User-WeChat Platform Interaction has the least impact.(3)Influencing factors of perceived usefulness.The significant influencing factors are all positively promoted,sorted by role size: identification,ease of use,number of WeChat friends,and need relevance.But,the number of product recommendation moments,the likings of my moments,and the comments of my moments my friends are all insignificant.(4)Influencing factors of perceived compatibility.All factors play a significant positive impact,ordered by role size: ease of use,system quality,need relevance,number of WeChat friends,complementarity.(5)Factors influencing perceived economic risk.The positive factors are ranked by role size: identity and complementarity;and the negative factors are in order of strength: number of moments I comment,ease of use,number of private chat friends,and number of moments I like.In addition,system quality,need relevance and number of WeChat friends are not significant.(6)Factors affecting enjoyment.The significant influencing factors are all positively promoted,sorted by the size of the effect: identification,need relevance,system quality,complementarity,and ease of use.While,the number of product recommendation moments,the likings in my moments,and the comments of my moments are not significant.