Social Shopping Development and Perspectives

Social Shopping In The Past

A search through the literature found that the term “social shopping” is not novel. It is interesting to note that the concept of “social shopping” in the earlier literature is by no mean delineated in online setting as the newly literature after 2005 in the domain of e-commerce does. Rather, earlier literature bounded the concept of social shopping in an offline (or non-IT-mediated), face-to-face setting.

In an empirical study by Marshall and Heslop (1988), “social shopping orientation” along with “convenience shopping orientation” were used as predictors of consumers’ use of self-service technology (i.e., automated teller machines). In their research, a predisposition to face-to-face personal interaction was viewed as the characteristic of social shopping orientation. Convenience shopping orientation, on the other hand, is characterized by technology-mediated feature. Their findings suggested that shoppers with a social shopping orientation do not perceive using self-service technology as advantageous while shoppers with a convenience orientation do. Their views and suggestions implied that users with social shopping orientation may be less favorable to the use of new technology that was viewed as lacking a personal interaction characteristic then.