Milking the Social Network: A Chinese Indigenous Psychology Perspective on WeChat C2C Commerce

We examine an emerging user self-regulated business model that is nowadays very popular in China – WeChat C2C Commerce, where users sell commercial products to their colleagues, friends, and acquaintances through the Moment feeds in the mobile social networking application. Theories such as trust and swift Guanxi characterizing traditional seller-buyer dyads may not effectively explain the popularity of WeChat C2C commerce. Therefore, we approach this C2C model through the indigenous philosophy of Chinese. In particular, we examine how expressive and instrumental ties embedded in WeChat will substitute for and/or complement to the straightforward impacts of perceived value of products on buyers’ purchase intentions and behaviors. Our findings will not only contribute to IS theories on e-commerce, but also provide provocative insights for entrepreneurs and managers penetrating markets with collectivism culture