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Top1. Introduction
During the early years of the 21st century, the advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), Web 2.0 technologies, and Social Networking Sites (SNSs) led to the social commerce (s-commerce) phenomenon (Hajli and Sims, 2015). S-commerce can be defined as “exchange-related activities that occur in, or are influenced by, an individual's social network in computer-mediated social environments, where the activities correspond to the need recognition, pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase stages of a focal exchange” (Yadav, De Valck, Hennig-Thurau, Hoffman, & Spann, 2013). It is a subset of electronic commerce (e-commerce), which makes use of Web 2.0 technologies and SNSs to support the interaction among people in an online context (Hajli, 2015; Hajli and Sims, 2015; Hajli, Sims, Zadeh, and Richard, 2016; Lu, Fan and Zhou, 2015). It is conceptualized on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Instagram where content is generated by the community of online users (Hajli, Sims, Zadeh, and Richard, 2016). Thus, s-commerce signifies a shift in consumer’s thinking and decision-making from individual consumption-based orientation to collaborative, interactive, and social shopping decisions (Chen and Shen, 2015; Halawani, Soh, and Halawani, 2020). The growth of s-commerce has resulted in new business models making use of Web 2.0 technologies and online communities (Hajli, 2015). During the 21st century, s-commerce has gained increasing significance and acceptance across the diverse industries in manufacturing and service sectors (Halawani, Soh, and Halawani, 2020; Vatanasakdakul, Aoun, and Putra, 2020). Many companies build their presence on popular SNSs such as Instagram and Facebook to promote their products and services through these social media channels for the online communities (Hajli and Sims, 2015). Further, these companies encourage their consumers to share the online reviews on their pages, which leads to further growth of business volumes (Liu, and Du, 2019; Hajli et al., 2016; Hajli & Sims, 2015). From the consumer perspective, s-commerce platforms have resulted in ease of access to information about the specific product or service or brand in the form of online reviews and comments as well as making online deals or purchases (Liu, and Du, 2019; Zhang, Tian, and He, 2019).