Directiva 2009/136/CE

Below, key social commerce attributes – social interactions, social support and social presence – are explored in the context of online communities, to demonstrate how trust is built and the essential role it plays in social commerce. Following this, the online trust chapter explores antecedents of trust within a social commerce framework through social commerce characteristics providing a foundation to substantiate trust antecedents to purchase intention.

2.3.4.1 Social Interactions

Social networking sites play an important role in strengthening and facilitating social interactions among brands and their communities. Social interactions are broadly defined as “any actions individuals engage in which affect the other consumers decision or valuations regarding a product or service” (Godes et al., 2005). Social interactions are an important prerequisite for successful social commerce (Wang and Yu, 2017), as they are embedded throughout the online decision-making journey.

A Facebook page is established by a company to promote its products and services with the objective of interacting with its community (fans) to generate conversation around its products, while gathering consumer insights. Social networking sites allow users to foster and nurture online relationships through tools such as likes,

18 comments, shares and emoji’s that allow online communities to publicly evaluate product purchases and rate services to their community – which then facilitates participation, word-of-mouth (eWOM) and social sharing (Kim and Park, 2013). This is also referred to as user-generated content, where content is created by individuals within a community, which is then browsed by others in the same or different communities (Li, 2017). Influencer marketing is a current tactic used by brands to heighten brand exposure through UGC, based on the concept that consumers trust their friends and peers above branded content. Influencers are individuals with a high network following in their online community, and are usually paid (by a brand) to post branded content or reviews on the brand product/service – giving considerable brand exposure to the influencer’s network, with the end goal of influencing their purchase intention. In a study on social media and trust by Warner-Søderholm et al. (2017), it is suggested that successful interactions in social media rely on the trust between the individual and their friends, as well as with the online community and the organisation.

These social tools encourage information-seeking behaviour, so positively increasing the user’s familiarity with the platform (Hajli et al., 2017b). As per Hajli’s study, familiarity and social interactions are good predictors of trust in a social networking community, and also a significant predictor of behavioural intentions (Hajli et al., 2017b; Ng, 2013). Social interactions are therefore a lucrative channel to tap into the hearts, minds and wallets of the brand’s target market (Hajli, 2017c). Online communities become useful marketing tools for brands, as they willingly share inspiring brand stories, so becoming ‘rand advisors and developers (Hajli, 2017:177), while the brand gathers insights and develops this co-creation through innovative activities. This collaboration between brand and consumer is an essential practice in relationship marketing. It is this process of co-creating and participation that positively impacts on the development of trust (Haljli et al., 2017a).

2.3.4.2 Social support

Social support is defined as “social resources which are available or provided by individuals of a network which nurture warmth, care and a sense of belonging” (Hajli, 2014b). Social commerce exists through a highly interactive social media ecosystem, which empowers users to share shopping experiences and knowledge about products with those they trust in the social media environment (Lin and Wang, 2016). Online community members willingly share information and recommendations, and the individual may feel obliged to return the same support to others (Liang et al., 2012). Social support plays an important role in online communities, as it cultivates trust between consumers and their decision-making.

Through consumer’s information-sharing behavior facilitated by social networking features such as sharing, liking and message posting, consumers turn to their network for valuable social support during the purchase decision-making process (Liang et al., 2012). Consumers have increasingly lost their trust in corporate

19 brands, choosing rather to trust content developed by other consumers in social media (Hajli et al., 2015b). In an empirical study by Shanmugam et al. (2016), social commerce constructs identified by Hajli (2015) are proved to positively influence social support (emotional and informational), and social support is proven to influence trust (Shanmugam et al., 2016). This social support positively influences user’s intention to participate in social commerce, influenced by the value the sharing of shopping information provides. This regular sharing of information was found to enhance trust and friendship among the community, and stimulates trust (Ng, 2013).

2.3.4.3 Social presence

Social presence is defined as “the extent to which a medium allows users to experience others as psychologically present” (Hassanein et al., 2009:627). A social networking site is considered socially warm, if it enables individuals to interact and increases the sociability and sensitivity of the communications (Hassanein et al., 2009). Past studies explored the social presence and development of online trust. Gefen and Straub (2004) explored consumer trust and the importance of social presence in the context of online services in e-commerce, and argued that where communication has a high social presence (on a website for instance) the platform is ‘personal and sociable’ (Gefen and Straub, 2004:410) – which facilitates the development of trust.

Trust and social presence are further examined by Lu et al. (2016). The authors found that social presence gives more social cues, and shortens the perceived social distance between online buyer and seller – thereby enhancing the buyer’s trust in the seller. This outcome confirmed a positive relationship between trusting beliefs and purchase intention (Lu et al., 2016). While in a different context, trust had a positive relationship to purchase intention. The study however raised caution about its generalizability – establishing that it might not reach the same conclusions if the sample was taken from a different culture, for example Western culture.

The recognition of the influence of culture on trust in this study demonstrates the need to continue testing the relationship between culture, trust and purchase intention. Given the importance of trust in social commerce shopping, it is essential to understand what influences trust, and cross-cultural studies examining this relationship have identified that different cultures react differently to online trust. Building knowledge in this area will have great implications for global brands and the management of global brands in local markets (Hassanein et al., 2009).

Hassanein et al. (2009) studied website trust and social presence between two diverse cultures – Canadians and Chinese. The research aimed to discover whether warmth and sociability have a positive impact on trust when integrated into website features (in this case, pictures and text). The results showed that social presence embedded through socially-rich design elements, had a positive impact on

20 perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment for the Canadian sample, and yet increased social presence did not influence online trust in the Chinese sample. The disconnect between social presence and online trust was suggested to happen as a result of not localizing the website, that Chinese do not build trust very quickly and this could affect the results, and using a country as a cultural surrogate was also questioned by Srite and Karahanna (2006). In essence, this study provided adequate evidence that what is deemed trustworthy for one culture online – does not mean it will have the same trust perceptions for a different culture (Hassanein et al., 2009). Gefen (2000) noted the need for more understanding on trust and cross- cultural effects within an online environment. Gefen (2000) correctly stated that both familiarity and trust are learned, and can therefore differentiate between cultures.

The next section explores the antecedents to online trust through social commerce constructs and social commerce characteristics. Social commerce constructs are explored first.