Casual selling practice: a qualitative study of non-professional sellers' involvement on C2C social commerce platforms

Abstract

Purpose

Recent substantial developments of consumer-to-consumer social commerce platforms (C2C-SCPs) emboldened consumers/users to be involved as sellers. Considering C2C social networks that privilege local reach, this paper aim to explore how the practice-based view informs non-professional sellers' involvement.

Design/methodology/approach

Underpinned by data from 29 semi-structured interviews with non-professional sellers on Kaskus, one of the largest local Indonesian C2C-SCPs, the study reveals the emergence of a novel structural practice that we call casual selling.

Findings

The findings show that casual selling allows non-professional sellers' involvement in C2C-SCPs through three broad categories of practices: priming oneself, producing commercial operations and valuing others. Within these three categories, non-professional sellers are found to generate both personal and collective involvement along nine situated market practices.

Research limitations/implications

This paper adds to previous research by introducing the practice-based view to social commerce literature. In doing so, it deals with the under-investigated seller's perspective and activities that prevail in C2C-SCPs.

Originality/value

In C2C-SCPs, casual selling constitutes a distinct mode of involvement in social commerce in which established professional selling standards are suspended. As a structural practice, it entices non-professional sellers to consider a wider variety of situations in which they are in dialogue with other individuals (buyers and sellers) to shape s-commerce potential. In doing so, C2C-SCP users draw on a dynamic intertwining between digital technology and the socio-cultural environment surrounding s-commerce.

Citation

Schwob, A., de Kervenoael, R., Kirova, V. and Vo-Thanh, T. (2023), "Casual selling practice: a qualitative study of non-professional sellers' involvement on C2C social commerce platforms", Information Technology & People, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 940-965. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-09-2020-0635