Recently, the popularity and growth of social media have boosted the development of social commerce (s-commerce). The purpose of this paper is to investigate consumers’ decisions in s-commerce, for which this study conducted empirical research on WeChat, a very popular social media in China, to validate how guanxi elements (e.g. ganqing, renqing and xinren) affect consumers’ decisions in s-commerce.
To examine the research model, an online survey instrument was developed to gather data. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares modeling.
The results confirm that guanxi elements are positively related to eWOM sharing intention and social shopping intention. Moreover, these effects are mediated by a sense of belonging.
This study enhances the existing literature by introducing the concept of guanxi elements to the context of s-commerce, and linking the concept of guanxi elements and consumers’ decisions. Moreover, this study improves the theoretical and empirical understanding of guanxi elements by investigating its impact on eWOM sharing intention and social shopping intention. Third, the results confirm that guanxi elements not only influence a sense of belonging but also conjointly impacts eWOM sharing intention and social shopping intention in s-commerce.
