Assessing the effect of social commerce structures, trust and perceived risk on the attitude and buying intention of customers

The expansion of e-commerce is one of the tangible effects of the development of Internet technology and the widespread use of a variety of mobile applications and platforms. Today, even the social interactions of individuals have changed under the influence of this development the results of which can be seen in online communities. This change in interaction and communication has transformed e-commerce into social commerce. In this context, customers rate various goods and services, review other people's opinions, participate in forums, share their experiences, and recommend some products and services. Social commerce is influenced by social media. In this new situation, consumers support each other through their opinions and points of views. Concepts such as trust naturally undergo a fundamental change, especially since the concept of trust has become very important due to the virtual nature of most activities and interactions in cyberspace. In general, trust in online literature is very significant. Due to this importance, the role of consumer social interactions in building trust through social commerce constructs has been investigated in this study. The study aims at the role of these structures on trust and intention to buy. Along with the basics of social commerce, the perceptual risk of the customer, which is an important obstacle to the decision to buy e-customers online, should be emphasized. When consumers change, postpone or cancel their purchase, it is an important sign of a perceived risk. Perceived risks can be defined as specific operational, financial, fraud, and delivery risks that affect customers' attitudes toward social trading sites. Therefore, considering the increase of social business popularity and its application especially its role in online commerce, it is so valuable to study of the most important structures affecting it so as to guide managers for making optimal and efficient decisions as well as helping customers decision to buy and guiding their right and suitable actions. From the perspective of social trade structures, no study has been done in Iran. In this case, the present research is a novelty. It seeks to answer the question of how social commerce, trust, and perceived risk affect the attitude and intention of customers to purchase from social commerce sites.

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of social commerce constructs, trust and perceived risk on customer attitudes and intentions. The statistical population of the study included all the people who had purchased a product at least once from social networks and sites such as Telegram, Instagram, Snap Food and Divar. The data analysis and hypothesis testing were performed based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) method using the AMOS software. According to the Cochran's formula, the sample size was 384 people at a confidence level of 0.95. The reliability of the study was also measured using Cronbach's alpha.

The aim of the research was to understand the effect of social commerce constructs, trust and perceived risk on the attitude and intention of customers to buy on social commerce sites. To this end, four direct hypotheses and three indirect hypotheses were developed and tested based on a structural model. The research results for the first and second hypothesis showed that social commerce constructs and perceived trust had a positive and significant effect on customer attitudes. For the third hypothesis, the significant and negative impact of perceived risk on customer attitudes was confirmed. Finally, the direct and significant effect of attitude on customer purchase intention was also confirmed. Based on the results of mediate (indirect) hypotheses, the attitude has a mediating role in the relation of social commerce constructs, trust, and perceived risk with the social commerce intention. Particularly, attitudes mediate the relationship of social commerce constructs, perceived trust and perceived risk with the intention of social commerce.

Overall, the results of the study showed that the three factors of social commerce constructs (associations and communities, rankings, and social recommendations), perceived trust and perceived risk (product risk, financial risk, fraud risk, delivery risk) have significant impacts on social commerce intention from social commerce sites. According to the first research hypothesis, social commerce constructs have a positive and significant effect on customer attitudes. Therefore, retailers should create the necessary infrastructure for social commerce constructs, have close interactions with customers, and listen to their opinions and experiences. The results of the second hypothesis showed that perceived trust has a significant and positive effect on customer attitudes. So, retailers and stores can gain and maintain the trust of customers by doing things such as secure transactions, protection of people's privacy, and proper after-sales service. The third hypothesis stated that the perceived risk has a significant and negative effect on customer attitudes. Therefore, retailers should produce and offer quality products that meet customer expectations, offer more discounts from traditional stores and at lower shipping costs, provide accurate information, and ultimately avoid delivering defective products to customers. Reduction of product risk, financial risk, fraud risk and delivery risk has significant impacts on customer attitudes. Finally, in the fourth hypothesis, the significant effect of attitude on social commerce intention was confirmed. According to Ajzen's Planned Behavior Theory, attitude significantly affects customer’s intent. Therefore, it seems necessary to study the factors affecting the attitude because it leads to social commerce intention.