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Does friendship quality matter in social commerce? An experimental study of its effect on purchase intention

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Abstract

Friendship plays a critical role in social commerce in contemporary societies. This study aims to theorize and examine how friendship quality impacts purchase intention. Product-related risk is introduced to gain insight into its moderating effects on intention to purchase from three different seller groups. Through empirical evidence, we confirm that friendship quality has positively effect on purchase intention. In particular, friends with high friendship quality (i.e., good friends) are more conducive to selling high-price high-risk products. However, friends with low friendship quality (i.e., simple friends) are not as attractive as strangers having good user reviews (i.e., reputable strangers). In other words, people are more willing to buy from reputable strangers than from simple friends. Theoretically, these results contribute to a better understanding of the effect of friendship quality on purchase intention. Finally, this research offers several practical implications for developing successful businesses in social commerce.

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Acknowledgements

This research is partially supported by the innovation plan project of coordinated science and technology in Shaanxi province of China (2012SZS-09) and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan (Grant No. 106-2410-H004-052). Resource support is provided by Shaanxi Key Laboratory of E-Commerce & E-Government at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China and Global Electronic Business Research Center (GEBRC) at National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

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  1. Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Qi Li & Ni Liang

  2. National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Eldon Y. Li

  3. Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Eldon Y. Li

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  1. Qi Li
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Correspondence to Eldon Y. Li.

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Li, Q., Liang, N. & Li, E.Y. Does friendship quality matter in social commerce? An experimental study of its effect on purchase intention. Electron Commer Res 18, 693–717 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-018-9299-6

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