The influence of social media on online consumer purchase intention

Social media have generated a huge buzz in today’s world. Internationally, Internet users now spend more than four and a half hours per week on social networking sites, the more time they spend on email. They cause a paradigm shift in how people interact and connect with each other and how they express and share ideas, and even on how they engage with products, brands and organizations. It is only popular among younger generations not so done middle and the older generation who get touched by the wave of social media. Initially, social media were used for the purpose of socializing where user able to connect with their friends and relatives. Later on, it developed widely as the tool of professional marketing to increase brand awareness among consumers which relatively cost effective. The world of digital communication creates many ways to promote the brand awareness and with the help of social media, it becomes the fastest way to reach consumer’s knowledge since consumer are almost always online and participating varieties of online activities. In additional, social media has become a dominant online platform of consumer knowledge of their online shopping activities. The purpose of this study to examine the influences of social media network on consumers ‘purchasing decision through available social commerce in Malaysia