The impact of Social Commerce Construction on Purchase Intention with the mediating role of Trust and Information Seeking

One of the most important uses of technology and the Internet in the economic field is social commerce, which is a subset of e-commerce. Recent advances in information and communication technologies and the advent of Web 2 have brought new developments in e-commerce. The popularity of social technologies and operating systems such as social networking sites (SNS) is one of the main reasons for progress in this area. These developments lead people to policy making and interaction with their friends in social contexts, especially in online communities. Social communications and interactions on the Internet, especially on social networking sites, which are the main focus of SNS, have opened up e-commerce to economic development. As the connection between business and technology has existed and continued for a long time, today one of the most popular methods of business is online shopping in the web world. Social commerce is an application from the Web 2 like a content creation tool to increase user interaction in e-commerce. Social commerce is a subset of e-commerce that includes the use of social media to assist in e-commerce activities and transactions. The difference between social commerce and e-commerce is that social commerce involves forums and conversations between members, while e-commerce focuses on people and one-on-one interactions to create value. The technology of Web 2, as the foundation of social media and social networking sites, facilitates the acquisition of products through user engagement and interaction. Nowadays, the use of social commerce has increased so that social commerce companies have significantly increased their financial investment risks. In the meantime, trust is one of the main reasons for customers to lead to e-shopping. However, according to the concept of social commerce, when users know about a product, they may participate in the purchase. So, trusting social networking sites can increase users' purchases from e-sellers. Buying from an e-seller depends on the customer's trust in the e-seller. So, trust in social networking sites can increase the intention to buy. Social networking sites as social commerce platforms connect customers with e-sellers and facilitate exchanges. Trust is a key concept in interactions and is important for companies in developing relationships with vendors In this regard, this research examines the impact of construction of social commerce on consumer purchase intention. This research is practical in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of data collection. The statistical population of this study consists of Tabriz University students who are considered as a set of the Instagram users or fans of popular non-Iranian social networks in Iran. The sample size is 376 according to the Cochran formula. In addition to being popular, the Instagram social network is chosen because it is a website-based social network. Due to the large number of users in the statistical population, random sampling method has been used. The data collected by the questionnaire were analyzed using the structural equation modeling method and the SPSS and PLS software programs. In this study, to check the reliability and validity of the constructs, four sets of necessary tests are carried out including internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. These validities are evaluated by analyzing Cronbach's alpha (α), factor loadings, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE). The minimum level of factor loading is 0.7, and the results show that they are above 0.7. The minimum value for α is 0.7, which shows that the data have an internal consistency. The model has good and reasonable convergent validity because the value of CR for all the constructs is above 0.8, while the value of AVE for all the constructs is above 0.5. Thus, the findings show a reasonable convergent validity. The discriminant validity confirms whether the construct measures are different from other constructs or not. Also, the result shows reasonable discriminant validity because the square root of the AVE is higher than the correlation between variables. The discriminant validity shows whether the construct measures are different from other constructs or not. Also, the findings show the square root of the AVE, which is higher than the correlation between variables, which shows the reasonable discriminant validity. The value of R2 above 0.2 is considered relatively high and acceptable. In this study, the value of R2 for trust is o.53, for information seeking is 0.36, and for purchase intention is 0.31. Furthermore, we use the blindfolding method to assess the relevance of exogenous variables and the model performance, which is a sample reuse method. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the role of social commerce and trust in the consumer's intention to buy from e-vendors. We used Instagram as the best-known platform for e-commerce to empirically test our model. Various findings can be obtained from this study. First of all, recommendations and referrals, ratings and reviews, and forums and communities are found to have a positive effect on consumers' trust in online purchasing. The results are consistent with the studies of Hajli (2015), Kim & Park (2013), and Weisberg et al. (2011). As these structures also affect purchase intention through trust, the effect of trust on purchase intention is also confirmed by information seeking mediation. This finding is consistent with prior studies and supported by Hajli (2015), Hajli et al. (2017), Li (2019), Henien (2011), and Featherman & Hajli (2015).  This study tested the research model by collecting data from 376 customers. The results showed that recommendations and referrals affect trust. The findings suggested that ratings and reviews and forums and communities have a significantly positive influence on trust, which further influences purchase intention. Also, as reported, trust positively and significantly affects information seeking. Furthermore, information seeking affects purchase intention.