Social Commerce Adoption Routes With The Elaboration Likelihood Model

The sharing behavior,which stimulates social interaction between users,is an important way to promote social commerce.Sharing behavior brings more visits to social commerce,which stimulates potential purchase demand of users.Users will click and visit the sharing links according to their own judgment after receiving it.Sharing links contain business attribute information such as products and platforms.Meanwhile sharing behavior endows sharing links with social attributes.When a user receives a sharing link,the business attribute and social attribute of the link affect the information processing process of the user at the same time.The motivation of users is affected by the involvement of the products included in the link.The motivation will affect the elaboration likelihood of users,which affect the route of user information processing.Based on the background above,this study proposes three questions: Do users have different information processing routes when receiving sharing links from social commerce? In each route,which factors have a greater impact? Will the products with different involvement in the link affect the user’s route selection?From the perspective of the users who get shared with links,this study draws upon the Elaboration Likelihood Model to develop and test a model of the process of users’ adoption of social commerce.There are three research objectives in this study:(1)Summarize two adoption routes,including the central route and peripheral route,when users adopt social commerce when get shared with links.(2)Explore the impact of business attributes,which related to the core functions of social commerce,on the central adoption route of users.And the impact of social attributes which related to the ancillary functions of social commerce on the peripheral route of users.(3)Explore the influence of the involvement degree of the products contained in the sharing link on the user’s choice of route when processing and adopting sharing information.To test our hypothesized relationships,the study drew upon a sample of 420 valid observation,which were collected both online and offline questionnaire survey.Structural equation model(SEM)with SPSS 24.0 and Amos 24.0 software was conducted to examine quantitative data.The study explores the antecedents of the central route and the peripheral route that affect users’ adoption of social commerce.Using multi-group analysis of SEM explores the influence of the involvement of the products in the shared links on users’ adoption route selection.There are four conclusions according to the results.(1)There are two routes in the process of users’ adoption of social commerce: the central route and the peripheral route.(2)The business attributes of social commerce play a role in the central route of users’ adoption.In the context of high product involvement,users’ perceived usefulness and the trust towards social commerce have a positive impact on their attitude.And users’ attitude has a positive impact on their adoption intention.Meanwhile the user’s perceived playfulness has no significant impact on their attitude.(3)The social attributes of social commerce play a role in the peripheral route of users’ adoption.In the context of low product involvement,users’ face awareness and interpersonal trust among users have a positive impact on their gratification of social contact.And users’ gratification of social contact and interpersonal trust among users have a positive impact on their adoption intention.Meanwhile the users’ renqing awareness has no significant impact on the their gratification of social contact.(4)Product involvement plays a regulatory role in users’ adoption of social commerce.The multi-group analysis shows that the impact of users’ perceived usefulness and the trust towards social commerce on their attitude,and the impact of users’ attitude on their adoption intention are stronger in the context of high product involvement.The impact of users’ face awareness on their social satisfaction and the impact of users’ gratification of social contact on their adoption intention are stronger in the context of low product involvement.In the context of high product involvement,the central route dominates the process of users’ adoption of social commerce,while peripheral route dominate the process of users’ adoption of social commerce in the context of low product involvement.There are three contributions of the study.(1)Summarize the process of user adoption of social commerce with the central route and the peripheral route.Explain the impact of social attributes and business attributes,which are contained in sharing links,on user adoption behavior.(2)The product involvement degree of the goods included in the sharing link is taken as the regulating variable of the user’s adoption route,which clearly explains the whole process of the user’s adoption of information.(3)Explore the peripheral route of users’ adoption with the Chinese social culture.Considering "face" and "renqing" in Chinese traditional culture,the study showed impact of Chinese social culture on users’ adoption of social commerce.There are three management implications and suggestions for the social commerce platform:(1)Sharing links should be differentiated according to different degrees of involvement of products.The sharing interfaces should highlight the specific characteristics of social commerce,which improve users’ probability of adopting social commerce and eliminate users’ aesthetic fatigue.(2)Pay attention to the brand image of the platform and establish a good reputation.Trust towards social commerce has a significant positive impact on users’ attitudes either sharing links contain high involvement products or low involvement products.Guiding users to establish trust towards social commerce can improve their probability of adopting social commerce.(3)Encourage users to share high-quality products,which enhance word-of-mouth communication.Interpersonal trust has a significant positive impact on users’ adoption of social commerce.The social sharing behavior can use the original relationship between users to improve the social commerce word-of-mouth communication,thereby improving the user adoption probability.