Social commerce e comportamento d'acquisto. Gli effetti del Web 2.0 sulla fiducia del consumatore

The advent of Web 2.0 technologies and social media is quickly transforming e-commerce environment from a product-oriented to a consumer-oriented social environment (Wigand, Benjamin, & Birkland, 2008), moving the online landscape into a consumer-driven era (Olbrich & Holsing, 2011; Vernuccio, Latorre, & Pastore, 2015), in which the social relationships and bonds established within online communities strongly influence decision-making and purchase process of other consumers. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as social commerce. Social commerce is a new form of e-commerce mediated by the Web 2.0 and social media. Thanks to the application of word of mouth (WOM), social commerce provides concrete support to both the interactions and the contribution of the online users in order to encourage and improve the online shopping experience of products and services (Dennison et al., 2009; Huang & Benyoucef, 2013; Salvatori & Marcantoni, 2015; Wang & Zhang, 2012; Zhang et al., 2013). Social commerce allows users to share their personal experiences, ratings and reviews, and to establish community-based social interactions (Godes & Mayzlin, 2004; Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, & Chowdury, 2009; Stephen & Toubia, 2010). Therefore, social commerce users rely on social judgments, the so-called user-generated content (UGC), to make more informed and accurate purchase decisions. In this context, consumers’ trust online becomes a crucial factor in the success of social commerce. In fact, unlike other forms of e-commerce, social commerce has some unique characteristics that may affect consumers’ trust, i.e. social support (informational and emotional), word of mouth and UGC. Hence, there is a need to identify the key variables of social commerce that contribute to shaping and influencing consumers’ trust and trust performance. After an initial literature review and telephone interviews with 24 leading e-tailers operating in Italy, the study identifies the key factors of social commerce (reputation, size, familiarity, quality of information, system quality, service quality, economic benefits, word of mouth and social support), in other words the constructs that influence consumers’ trust online. In addition, the research assesses the effects of trust on two of the main trust performance: intention to purchase and intention to word of mouth in a social commerce environment. The proposed model has been tested empirically. A CAWI questionnaire was carried out and sent to a target of Italian consumers. The results of the questionnaire were processed with SEM – structural equation modeling. The results indicate that all the characteristics of social commerce identified have significant effects on trust and, consequently, on trust performance (intention to purchase and intention to WOM) in a social commerce environment. These results have important implications for e-tailers looking to develop a successful business model in this new consumer-driven era.