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Online retailing is continuing to grow at a time with many fashion brands are closing retail stores. Social media is now an essential component within the purchase journey of a fashion consumer. As social media networks continue to develop transactional capabilities, this has giving rise to the expansion of social shopping. Fashion brands need to consider how best to optimise social shopping opportunities as an extension of the retail shopping experience. Reviewing developments within retailing, a conceptual model of social shopping is proposed, which places mobile technologies as central to the social shopping experience both on social media and in store.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shoppers’ social value perception affects their purchase intention in online shopping context through its distinct role and relationships with other value dimensions. The moderating effect of the characteristics of other members on the relationship among value dimensions and the difference of value perception between experienced and inexperienced members were also tested to identify the boundary conditions of the proposed model.

The survey included 272 consumers from a well-known social shopping website in China to test the hypotheses.

The results indicate that hedonic and utilitarian value fully mediate the relationship between social value and purchase intention. Perceived expertise positively moderates the relationship between social value and the other two values. In particular, the results found that while inexperienced members can acquire both higher utilitarian and hedonic value from social value and their purchase intention relies more on the hedonic value, experienced members place greater emphasis on the utilitarian value.

The results may help vendors regain confidence in the social shopping business mode and offer specific policy implications on how to leverage shoppers’ social value perception to generate their purchase intention in a social shopping context.

This study focuses on the legitimacy of the independent role of social value and sheds light on the relationships among social value and other value dimensions based on social capital theory, which was under-explored by previous studies. Besides, this study clarifies the moderating role of experience, which highlights the previously unnoticed changing role of consumers’ value perception.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate social shopping deals and their impacts on review metrics at an online review site, Yelp and to compare the review metrics of the restaurant businesses and the health and wellness businesses to understand how social shopping deals affects them.

This study adopts a multiple regression model to analyse the effect of seven independent variables on the dependent variable, the growth rate of reviews which is a proxy of sales growth. This sample consisted of the review data of 134 merchants which offered social shopping deals at Groupon in 2011. The online review data of these merchants were collected in 2015 to analyse the relationship between the deals and the grow rate of the reviews.

For the restaurant businesses, there is a positive persuasive effect of Groupon customers’ review score on the growth rate of the reviews and consequently on the sale growth. For the health and wellness businesses, there are a positive persuasive effect of the regular customers’ review score on the growth rate of the reviews and a negative awareness effect of the number of Groupon reviews on the growth rate of the reviews. The review data also show that the Groupon customers of the health and wellness businesses are three times more likely to post their reviews than those of the restaurant businesses.

First, while the author limited the study to the seven independent variables, additional variables may exist. These additional variables may also influence the number of reviews, too. Future research needs to identify such variables to build a comprehensive model. Second, future research needs to address other types of businesses, such as education and entertainment, and compare differences between them. Third, while the study focussed on the review score and the number of reviews, a more in-depth analysis of the comments using sentiment analysis and social network analysis may shed additional insights on their review activities.

Despite the potential significance of customers’ reviews about social shopping deals, the critical mass of empirical studies still lacks in this area. The study contributes to the literature of this field by investigating the effect of social shopping deals on the customers’ online reviews. This study provides practical guidance for the improvement of online reviews about social shopping deals.

Social shopping platforms have flourished by using multiple social shopping features, yet little is known about how the combination of these features affects purchase intention, particularly in terms of the product itself. The purpose of the paper is to draw on the concept of social shopping feature richness, adopting a formative approach on the survey used, and endeavors to reveal the concept's impact on consumers' buying intention from a product perspective.

Building on mental accounting and signaling theories, a theoretical model is proposed and empirically evaluated with 356 samples collected using a questionnaire survey.

The results suggest that social shopping feature richness promotes consumers' consumption by providing information signals to satisfy acquisition utility and transaction utility. Specifically, social shopping feature richness enhances perceived product quality, while decreasing negative perceptions regarding price. Moreover, perceived product quality and perceived price significantly influence buying intention through the mechanism of perceived value.

The authors' study highlights the role of the combination of functionally diverse social shopping features on product sales for social shopping platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dilemma that is based on a decision to disclose or not to disclose social shopping rewards (SSRs), in an effort to enhance the effectiveness of social shopping. To protect consumers and guide marketers, emergent forms of online commerce on social media platforms warrant closer examination. One such form is social shopping, which combines social media and online shopping. To motivate word of mouth (WOM) through social signs of approval or endorsement of brands, marketers have typically relied on social shopping rewards (SSRs). It is not typical, however, for the reason behind the social endorsement to be disclosed, leaving the branded message open to multiple interpretations.

The dilemma of SSR disclosures is presented in a marketing and public policy analysis, drawing from findings from the WOM literature on disclosure, incentives, source credibility and on social media Disclosure Guidelines by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Based on this analysis and on an extension of the Dual Credibility Model, a conceptual model is proposed that shows how disclosure works through source credibility to produce positive social shopping outcomes.

In addition to the conceptual model, recommendations are made for marketing research, practice and public policy. Of significance are proposed SSR Disclosure Guidelines that extend FTC and WOMMA guidelines for best practices in disclosures in social media.

This paper represents pioneering research on the disclosure of SSRs.

The purpose of this paper is to devise a comprehensive framework of the emergent shopping experience as the result of the combination of store access and the use of communication technologies, particularly social media.

The paper builds on a set of 20 semi-structured interviews to London-based young consumers aged 18-23 and adopts an exploratory approach aimed at understanding the broad relationship between retailing and social media use.

The findings highlight how an intensive use of social media and digital communication technologies emerges as an integral part of the shopping experience inside and outside the store.

Drawing upon the notion of the “experience economy,” scholars and practitioners are actually pushed to reconsider the role of traditional shopping as in-store experience that is evolving fast as an effect of the continuous progress into communication technologies. This concept contributes to knowledge development by linking research in retail with work in the area of consumer culture.

Marketers and retailers should consider that the shopping experience is no longer limited to the physical point of sale. This means that retailers should be able to provide a shopping experience that is natively networked.

The authors identify the emerging “networked experience” of shopping, which derives from the consumers’ widespread usage of new communication technologies to collect information, their willingness to share part of this information with others, while creating new digitally mediated relationships with retailers.

The purpose of this paper is to decompose total customer value as perceived by department store shoppers into utilitarian, hedonic and social dimensions, and empirically test this conceptualization in a Finnish department store shopping context.

Data were collected by a questionnaire administered over three days at a department store that generates the second largest turnover in Finland. A total of 364 shoppers completed the questionnaire.

Empirical evidence supports our tripartite conceptualization of total customer value. In particular, social value is an independent construct. Further, social value varies by day‐of‐week, with a significant increase on Saturday (versus weekdays) when the store is more crowded, whereas no such differences in utilitarian and hedonic values were detected.

The principal contribution is a tripartite conceptualization of total customer value that incorporates utilitarian, social and hedonic value dimensions in a department store shopping context. Individually these dimensions are all well rooted in streams of consumer behavior literature, albeit mostly at the product or brand, not the store, level. Increasing our understanding of these softer aspects of shopping, particularly the social dimension, is important because they represent possible differentiating factors in the highly competitive and often commoditized retail markets.

The purpose of this paper are to examine: first, whether the consumer style inventory (CSI) consumer decision-making styles were related to opinion seeking using electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites (SNSs) and attitudes toward online social shopping using SNSs; and second, whether opinion seeking in SNSs and attitudes mediated the links between decision-making styles and intent to social shop online for apparel using SNSs.

The conceptual foundation was based on Engel, Kollat, and Blackwell's model. In total, 304 college students who are SNS users provided usable responses. Structural equation modeling was employed to test the proposed model and research hypotheses.

Among the CSI consumer decision-making styles, novelty/fashion consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of opinion seeking using eWOM. The brand consciousness decision-making style was the most important antecedent of favorable attitudes. Novelty/fashion consciousness, brand consciousness, and price consciousness decision-making styles had indirect effects on intent to social shop online for apparel using SNS, mediated by both opinion seeking and favorable attitudes.

This study contributes to further theoretical understanding of the types of consumers that are drawn to eWOM and their online social shopping behaviors for apparel using SNSs. By identifying individual consumer characteristics, this study can provide retailers with an initial profile of consumers who shop apparel using SNSs. Retailers can use this information to further develop the design of their social shopping sites using SNSs to meet the needs of their customers.

First, this paper aims to investigate the impact of impulsiveness on two types of shopping value (e.g. utilitarian and hedonic value) and the urge to buy restaurant products and services impulsively in social commerce environments. Second, the study assesses the impact of situational factors (e.g. scarcity and serendipity) on individuals’ shopping values.

Data were collected from 332 participants. By using PLS-graph 3.0, structural equation modeling was conducted. Furthermore, a hierarchical regression model was conducted for testing the mediating and moderating effects.

The results indicate that impulsiveness is a strong predictor for two types of shopping value (hedonic and utilitarian) and the urge to buy impulsively. While the hedonic shopping value was found to have a significant influence on the urge to buy impulsively, utilitarian value was not. Scarcity was moderator in the relationships between impulsiveness and both types of shopping value, whereas serendipity was found to moderate only the relationship between impulsiveness and the utilitarian shopping value.

The findings show that the marketing managers and application developers of social commerce should place their focus on scarcity and serendipity to stimulate consumers in having a hedonic shopping value so to have an urge to buy impulsively.

First, although most previous studies focused on only rational or planned consumption, this study focused on irrational and unplanned consumption as well. Second, the authors assessed the role of situational factors (scarcity and serendipity) occurring in social commerce and asserted that these factors moderate the relationship between consumers’ shopping values and their urge to buy impulsively.

This paper examines the effect of shopping value (utilitarian, hedonic and social) on shopping satisfaction and store revisit intention in the post-pandemic phase. Additionally, the authors investigate how shoppers’ COVID-responsible behaviour and visit frequency are contingent on their shopping value evaluations.

Data were collected (n = 527) using the store intercept method during March 2022 (a recovery phase from the third wave of COVID-19 in India). The authors adopted structural equation modelling to test the proposed model.

Shopping values significantly impacted shopping satisfaction and store revisit intentions. The effects of utilitarian and hedonic value on satisfaction were stronger for frequent shoppers than infrequent shoppers. While utilitarian value contributes to stronger satisfaction of COVID-responsible shoppers, COVID-non-responsible shoppers are better satisfied with social value. The impact of hedonic and social value on satisfaction has reduced significantly from the pre- to post-pandemic phase.

Practising managers should recognise that positive shopping value evaluations are important for generating satisfaction. Notably, the utilitarian value becomes more important in times of environmental exigencies. The study provides insights to devise strategies to attract and retain frequent shoppers who are major contributors to the store’s profit.

This study is one of the few studies which focuses on in-store shopping and consumers’ shopping value evaluations in a COVID-19 recovery phase. This study is one of the first that compares the post-pandemic shopping value judgement to a pre-pandemic phase. The authors provide valuable insights into store revisit intentions of shoppers who behave responsibly in a challenging environment.