Convert Traffic to Purchase: the Impact of Social Network Information on Trust and Purchase Intention in Social Commerce

As social commerce gain popularity, many of them are focused on how to drive huge amount of traffic in social media to online retailer. In this study we adopt experiment method to analyze whether information content and source influence perceived credibility and quality of information, which would then influence consumers’ trust and their purchase intention in the social commerce. 203 respondents are recruited and randomly dispatched into 4 treatment groups. The data analysis reveals that experiential information obtains higher source credibility and higher perceived information quality than non-experiential information; user-generated-content (UGC) obtains higher source credibility than marketer-generated-content (MGC), but the correlation between information source and perceived information quality is not significant; both credibility of sources and perceived information quality are positively related to trust and purchase intention in the social commerce. Suggestions have been made for designing social commerce website