The Effect of Consumers' Social Interactions on Trust in Online Group-buying

Abstract

Abstract:

As a type of online shopping, online group-buying has characteristic of consumers' social interaction. In the context of group-buying, consumers can be affected by other society members who share information and communicate with them online. Previous researchers have found that in online environment, trust can significantly influence consumers' willingness to purchase. Therefore, in this paper we study consumers' social interaction factors that affect trust in the context of online group-buying in China. Through the empirical study on the physical products and service products group-buying respectively, this paper indicates that consumers' social interaction has a significant influence on consumer trust in online group-buying. This influence is reflected in two aspects: informational influence and normative influence. However, informational influence plays a more important role in trust change for service products than physical products, while normative influence plays a more important role for physical products. Moreover, the study shows that in the different direction of comments (positive or negative comments), informational influence and normative influence do affect online group-buying individual's trust, but with no significant difference.

Key words: online group-buying, trust, consumers' social interaction, informational influence, normative influence

Han Jinxing, Zhang Zhe, Gu Chenyan. The Effect of Consumers' Social Interactions on Trust in Online Group-buying[J]. , 2016, 28(9): 148-162.

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