Adoption of Online Purchase through Social Media: The Role of User Generated Content

Abstract

In terms of adoption and perform levels the social media platforms are enjoying exceptional success. They make an outstanding ground to unite and converse the people with each other where they can share their ideas, views, reviews about different products, services, persons, brands and so on. Moreover, now-a-days, social media platform is treated as the most remarkable network of consumer knowledge. In case of online business platform, the significance of social media is increasing very rapidly. The consumers are so keen to adopt with online purchasing process through social media due to several exceptional benefits such as ease of use, efficient services, capacity to compare among the alternatives, plethora of relevant and reliable information about required products and so on. Moreover, an adequate number of researchers have been focusing on the field of social media communication in an attempt to understand its effects on products or services by studying relevant topics such as electronic word-of-mouth communication, User-Generated Content (UGC), UGC on social networking sites and its impact on consumer-based brand equity constructs. Yet, notwithstanding the increase in experimental research into the topic of social media, there is still a little understanding about the role of UGC through virtual community members regarding adoption of online purchasing process. Therefore the study aims to identify the role of user-generated content in social media to influence the adoption of virtual purchasing process by consumers through social media platforms in Bangladesh. The research tries to find out what are the influential factors that can lead people to prefer more online shopping rather than offline shopping, why people want to buy their required products online, and what inspires them to make the online shopping purchase decision. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the objectives by using combination of TPB and TAM model. It also examines the mediating effects of User Generated Content (UGC) on adoption of online purchase by the virtual community group through social media. In order to gather the data, an organized face-to-face survey was used. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least squares method was used to analyze the data collected from 432 respondents. The results confirmed that attitude, perceived usefulness, subjective norms and user generated content positively influence the consumers to adopt online purchase through social media. Moreover, user generated content has a significant mediating effect on adoption of online purchase through social media whereas mediation effects through attitude, perceived behavioral control and perceived ease are significant. Ultimately, the study also addressed the theoretical and practical consequences regarding the adoption of online purchasing process through social media. Study findings will serve as inputs for promoting customer-oriented business strategy for online traders via social media platforms.