The effects of benefit -driven commitment on usage of social media for shopping and positive word-of-mouth

Abstract

Shopping on social media (SM) is more popular now than ever. SM enables interactive communication among users and provides great opportunities for marketers and advertisers to reach out to consumers. While SM has potential as a marketing platform, not much is known whether consumers perceive benefits of SM as a shopping platform and how such perceived benefits can drive their shopping activity on SM. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between consumers’ multi-dimensional perceived SM benefits, their commitment to SM, the actual usage of SM for shopping purposes, and their willingness to spread positive comments about their shopping experience on SM. Results of an online survey (N ¼ 325) successfully confirmed the proposed model: consumers perceive functional, experiential, and/or symbolic benefits from using SM, show calculative, affective, and/or normative commitments, use SM for shopping purposes, and engage in generating positive electronic word-of-mouth. This research contributes to the literature by revisiting SM as an emerging shopping platform and empirically validating the conceptual model that lays out the motivational processes underlying shopping via SM.