An Investigation into Consumers’ Continued Social Shopping Intentions

Social shopping (s-shopping), a novel online shopping model which connects consumers and leverages collaborative efforts, has achieved initial success. However, the continued usage remains a serious issue. To explore the consumers’ intentions to continually participate in s-shopping activities, we reviewed literature on sustaining IS usage and s-shopping technical designs and built a research model. To test the hypotheses, an online survey of s-shopping users was conducted in a leading Chinese social network site, Sina Weibo. The results confirmed that consumers’ perceptions of the usefulness and enjoyment of using the s-shopping system are critical predictors of their persistent usage. Moreover, informational social support from the virtual group also encourages ongoing participation in the collaborative shopping activities. In addition, personalization, social interaction and social presence support of the s-shopping system are discovered as remarkable antecedents of consumers’ usefulness, enjoyment and social support perceptions of the system. This paper fills in the research gap of s-shopping continuance and enriches s-shopping literature