The Value of Social Shopping Networks for Product Search and the Moderating Role of Network Scope

Online shoppers are increasingly embedded into social networks via digital platforms in which they can use social connections as a means to discover and learn about products. In these settings, consumers do not start on equal informational grounds because their ability to reach products and opinions depends on where they are located in the network. In this paper, we study how a social network-enabled shopping environment influences product search (i.e., how consumers mobilize the bundle of features offered to them to reach products and acquire information) and subsequent consumer outcomes. In addition, we examine network scope, an important design attribute of a social shopping network, by looking into the implications of 'open' (i.e., when shoppers can freely traverse the whole network structure) and 'private' (i.e., when shoppers can only navigate within their personal network) designs. This paper presents a preliminary report of a research project aimed at addressing these questions.