The influence of perceived value on purchase intention in social commerce context

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of perceived benefits, i.e. utilitarian value, hedonic value and social value, as well as perceived risk, on purchase intention in social commerce context. To cast light on the factors motivating users’ intention to purchase in the context of social commerce, data of 277 users of social commerce in China were collected via an online survey. Results show that satisfaction significantly and positively affects users’ purchase intention in social commerce context. In addition, utilitarian, hedonic and social values have significant and positive impacts on satisfaction and purchase intention; and utilitarian value is found to be the most salient factor influencing purchase intention, while hedonic value has the greatest effect on satisfaction. Moreover, perceived risk significantly and negatively affects satisfaction. Extant research on social commerce has mainly focused on investigating how the general perceived value affects user behavior, but has less considered different dimensions of perceived value. Moreover, prior studies have explored the roles of utilitarian and hedonic values on user behavior; however, there is a lack of research on the effect of social value. The current study attempts to fill these research gaps.