Social Commerce In Retaling - Why You Use IT?

Social media has not only reshaped the way people make decisions, but also changed the norms of how people interact with others. Due to the popularity of social media, social commerce is becoming a new form of e-commerce approaches. This study attempts to investigate what motivates individuals’ use of social commerce in the context of grocery retailing service based on the theoretical framework of the Uses and Gratifications theory. The empirical data was collected from a Finnish social commerce website offering a social media environment for social commerce in grocery services. Based on both survey data and clickstream data, we found that i) individuals are motivated to use social commerce in grocery retailing service mainly due to their utilitarian gratification in using it as social commerce platform can meet their functional needs; ii) social gratification plays weak role in determining social commerce in grocery retailing service as individuals has less social needs compared to their functional needs in social commerce; and iii) hedonic gratification might be a potential reason as the hedonic needs seems to be very weak. The functions (searching for products and recipes, compiling shopping lists and online shopping, etc.) offered by the social commerce services meet individuals’ functional needs, and motivate them to use social commerce. Finally the limitations of the current research are discussed, and the directions for further research are also suggested.