Exploring E-commerce and Social Media: A Review of Literature

The provided content includes research articles and studies on various topics related to e-commerce, social media, and corporate transparency in municipalities. The articles discuss the role of social presence in establishing loyalty in e-service environments, the impact of social influence in e-commerce decision-making, and the use of social media for business success. Additionally, the content touches upon food marketing to children, restaurant performance, and online travel information search.

Running head: SOCIAL E-COMMERECE 0
Opportunities and Problems of Social Electronic Commerce in restaurants of Australia

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Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................................1
Project Objective:........................................................................................................................................1
Project Scope...............................................................................................................................................1
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................2
Conclusion:..................................................................................................................................................8
Reference:...................................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
E-commerce is experiencing a great development and evolution. This evolution has resulted in
transformation of E-commerce from a products based environment to a customer support
environment. The integration of web 2.0 technology in E-commerce has increased the customer
orientation and involvement through the medium of internet (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013). This
environment has provided the benefits to the customers to get better access to the companies and
their products. Along with this online businesses can also have better access to the behaviour of
the customers and their purchase decisions. This helps them to market their products in an
effective way. Almost all the industries today are making use of this technology of social E-
commerce in order to enhance their business practices and customers support base. It also helps
the company to make their image and goodwill in front of the customers. Restaurant industry is
one of the industries of Australia that is making use of these social platforms in order to satisfy
the needs of the customers and to support them. This is the report that discusses about some of
the concepts of social E-commerce and it use and issues faced by the restaurant industry of
Australia (Laudon & Traver, 2013). This study deals with analysing the different viewpoints
regarding the subject and the opportunities that are available for E-commerce in the field of
restaurant industry in Australia.
Project Objective:
This study revolves around some of the research questions that need to be answered. It has been
analysed that the objectives of this report are:
 To understand the evolution of social E-commerce from E-commerce
 To identify the opportunities those are persisting in the restaurant industry of Australia
for social E- commerce.
 To identify the problems of social E-commerce in restaurant industry.
Project Scope:
It is the report that deals with the study of social E-commerce and it use in the restaurant industry
of Australia. The scope of this report is to understand the basic concept of evolution of social E-

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commerce from E-commerce and the opportunities and problems of E-commerce in the
restaurant industry (Assal, Lim & Lee, 2010). The results of this study helps in understanding the
opportunities that are available for social; E-commerce to be implemented in the field of
restaurants. This study helps in identifying some of the problems that can be generated at the
time of implementing the social e commerce technology into the restaurant business. The idea of
these opportunities and problem helps the business owners to take better decisions and exploit
the opportunities available in order to enhance the business by using such technology.
Literature Review:
The internet mediums are not only the one way street. It has become more than that. It is not only
the place where the content can be consumed by the users but now the users can also edit the
same. The aspects like social media networking are the biggest innovation that took place in the
internet world (Lee, Hallak & Sardeshmukh, 2016). Social networking portals such as Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. have strongly affected the life of the people and the business. Inclusion
or involvement of internet into the business has changed the concept of the business models
these days. Any business that is running offline has its online presence as well. Social e
commerce is the new concept that is not being researched so much till now (Pantelidis, 2010).
The success of social networking in businesses is because of the involvement of customers. Due
to the social networking sites, more and more customers can engage in the business activities and
the transparency has increased. It has also been analysed that customers prefer to buy products
from the online portals. Social ecommerce have been developed by making advancement in the
e-commerce business. Ecommerce business or the e commerce websites allow the customers to
see the products and make the transactions but social e commerce results in customer’s
interaction with the company (Safko, 2010). This increase the transparency between the
customers and the businesses. There are various forms of social commerce. Social networking
portals such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. have strongly affected the life of the people
and the business. Inclusion or involvement of internet into the business has changed the concept
of the business models these days. Any business that is running offline has its online presence as
well. Social commerce is the platform that allows the people to collaborate with each other on
the online portal that results in exchange of information, finding goods and services required,
making purchases etc. It helps the customers by reducing their efforts that are required by them

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to shop (Trusov, Bucklin & Pauwels, 2009). The cycle of the research and the purchase of the
product or the service can be reduced by using social e commerce as it provides a single platform
for researching as well as purchasing. It is not only the platform that helps in finding products
but the following picture describes the idea of social e-commerce clearly:
Social commerce is about sharing the information, with the usage of information and
communication tools along with the user interaction. Social e-commerce helps in integrating the
customer’s interaction process with the business processes (Weisberg, Te'eni & Arman, 2011).
Customers can directly engage into the business processes with the use of technological tools,
applications, etc.
Social media is basically defined as the combination of the social media portals with the
customer’s interaction facility that is integrated with the businesses in order to provide them with
the facility of connecting with the customers directly (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). Content changes
and development in the social media technology is developing many opportunities for this field
to enter and create innovation in the field processes. In initial times, social media tools were used
to see the content shared by others, and then it allowed the users to share their contents and edit
the content only (Sacks, Mialon, Vandevijvere, Trevena, Snowdon, Crino & Swinburn, 2015).
Now is the time when the people can chat and even do video calls. These developments in the
field allow the field to enter into other businesses so that customers can be need in the business
and transparency can be increased, this helps the companies to make close relationship with the
customers and get their reviews about the products and services offered (Kelly, Chapman, Hardy,
King & Farrell, 2009).

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It has been argued that social media technology or social e-commerce has great impact on the
restaurant industry in Australia. It plays a very vital role in enhancing the business practices of
restaurant business (Kelly & Chapman, 2007). Therefore, it is required by the restaurant industry
to understand about the conceit of inclusion of social media in E commerce.
The industry of restaurant or the business dealing with restaurant industry can make utilisation of
the social media tools in order to maximise the resources available. These social media tools
allow the restaurants to gather information about the customers, their choices and their references
etc. as far as the other benefits of usage of social media or social e commerce is considered, it
has been analysed that customization can also be done by the restaurants to cater the customized
products to the sciences according to their choices (Kim & Srivastava, 2007). In terms of
customers, social media can be used by them to search for the restaurants according to their
choices and the event.
As far as Australia is conserved, it has been analysed that social media usage in the businesses or
the E commerce industry is enjoying growth in every sector (Cohen, 2009). The above picture
suggests that the industry has experienced an immense growth from the year 2013 to 2017 in
Australia.
More than half of the population of Australia is on social media network. Thus, there are
opportunities or the businesses such as restaurant to target their customers through these online
social media channels (Cyr, Hassanein, Head & Ivanov, 2007). Having an online presence is

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becoming too obvious for the individuals as well as for the businesses. If the customers are
unable to find any of the businesses online that means the business has no presence in the
market. It becomes a media of reliability as well. If the customers can easily find the businesses
online then he can get the information about the business and thus it is the proof of the presence
of the business in the market (Kwok & Yu, 2013).
The main purpose of using these social media sites by the customers is to post the pictures.
People in Australia not only showcase the pictures of themselves and their relatives but also post
the pictures of the exciting meals that they eat (Li, Wu, & Lai, 2013). This is because, people
these days believe in showcasing their lifestyle and every moment of their life in the social media
so that they can get any likes and comments from their relatives’ mad friends. It has been
analysed that most of the teenagers are getting addicted to all these social media channels and the
new features installed in these application provide so many entertainment benefits to the people.
It is not just the food but everything what they do, what they eat, what they wear is on social
media now days. Social media is changing the way people are eating (Swamynathan, Wilson,
Boe, Almeroth & Zhao, 2008). They do not look for tasty food but it is necessary that the food
should look good so that they can post the picture. The popularity of these social media is
increasing in such a high pace that people are getting addicted to it and it has become the daily
activity of the people to post their food and all the meals. The technology and invention of
mobile has made it easy for all the people to do these social media activities. It has been analysed
that 54% of the total people in Australia from the age group of 18-24 year old have been posted
their meal’s pictures on social media sites. This popularity of the social media in Australia and
love for food by the people creates so much opportunity for social e commerce in the business of
Australian restaurants (Waters, Burnett, Lamm & Lucas, 2009). The restaurants can use these
social media tools in their businesses in any ways. It has been argued that restaurants are til now
known as the place for eating and having the meals but now the trends have changed and these
restaurants have become the place to hangout and showing off. Technology has shown its impact
on this businesses well. As per the data of the National Restaurant Association, most of the
consumers have said that technology plays a vital role in the business of restaurants. They have
experienced many benefits after implementing the technological aspects in their field. Several
opportunities have also developed for social ecommerce to get into this business because of the

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demands of the customers (Liang & Turban, 2011). Payment is the basic activity that is required
to be conducted in the restaurant business and this is the activity that has created a first
opportunity for social e commerce. People do not have to pay for their orders in the restaurant
but can pay through the applications that the restaurants are using these days. There are many
sites or the third gateways that support these kinds of payments. Marketing is the field that can
be incomplete without social ecommerce. This is because now a day’s people believe in surfing
or searching the things online rather than roaming around in the market. This is the second
opportunity for the social media in the restaurant business that is marketing of the restaurants.
There are many sites that gather the information from different restaurants about their food and
their prices (Kelly, Bochynska, Kornman & Chapman, 2008). These sites also provide the
facility to the customers to write their reviews and post their experiences so that the other
customers can see the ratings. This enables the restaurants also to be in the eyes of the customers
as most if the customer looks for these sites before moving out of for having any of the meal. It
is not these sites that support the businesses to post about the products or brads but the social
networking sites like Facebook and instagram also helps in developing their pages and posting
the new dishes invented by tem so that more and more customers can visits the place. This
method of marketing has become very common (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy & Silvestre,
2011). Delivery is another process that acts as the opportunity for the social e commerce to enter
into the restaurant business. This is because most the people in Australia are working and on
week days prefers to order the food rather than going to the place and eat. This facility of home
delivery can be made easier through social Ecommerce and these social media tools and
applications. The applications allow the customers to order the food along with the reviews. The
food can be delivered to the correct address as the customers have to enter his address and the
choice of food on the portal (Kladou & Mavragani, 2015). The customers can either pay online
or can pat at the time of delivery through cash. Al these facilities attract the customers to take
such services as these services are very easy to use and convenient for them. There are many
other opportunities that can be created in future with advancement in the social media
technology. As this technology is experiencing a great growth in these days so other business
that are associating themselves with these social media sites are also experiencing growth.
Online presence of the business is becoming important especially for the restaurants as this has
become the trend for the people, to showing off their meals.

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Engaging with the customers for the restaurant business is very important. This drives the
restaurant in Australia to serve the market with their online presence. It is very effective in
developing the image of the company and making the people aware about the brand and the
products the company is offering. It has been analysed that various marketers and the
management of the restaurant business argues that along with opportunities for social media in
the field various problems and issues can also be developed in order to initiate the social
ecommerce the businesses (Fasli, 2007). Most of the marketers argued that the major issue that
has been generated in this is related to uncontrolled invasion. It has been analysed that the major
issue is that the restaurant owners do not have any control on the invasion and the perception that
the people or the customers are having about the products and services. This is because; it is
made by the reviews that the customers post on the online portal. If any of the customers has
different choice or had bad experience because of nay of the issue then he may post bad about
the place and even about the food. Thus, it is difficult for the customers also to rely totally on
that review. On the other hand, the company do not have any control on the perception that the
other customers made after reading that review. From the customer’s point of view, it has been
analysed that there are many issue that can be developed in this process of integration of the
social media with the restaurant business. Customers do not like to get mails again and again
even frothier favourite restaurants. They get frustrated and may block the site of the restaurant.
This is again a problem that needs to be overcome. This is because these mails are auto generated
and any of the customers who have shared these details with the company will receive such auto
generated mail regarding nay of the offers or the discounts. This is also cannot be controlled as it
is not possible to send mails manually (Bonsón, Torres, Royo & Flores, 2012). The another
drawback that is associated with social e commerce is that people feel insecure to believe and
sometimes even the restaurant marketers provide false information to the customers on the online
portals. This also leads to delivery of wring information and the customers get confused whether
to believe it or not. Social ecommerce provides the information to the customers but the
information is so much that it creates mess in the minds of the customers that what to believe and
what not to believe. When the customer went to the restaurant and has his meal, the only he can
taste it and provide the review but only by watching at the social media site of the company, it is
difficult to judge. People only judge it by the decorations and the ambience of the place as well
as the fascinating way in which the restaurants presented its dish to the customers online. It is the

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biggest challenge the customers as well as for the restaurant owners to deal with the social e
commerce. Any deviation for the online image of the products at the time of offline purchase
may disappoint the customers and leads to creation of distrust amongst the customers regarding
all the online sellers. They build their perception that everything is fake and all the online sellers
cheat with them (Kelly, Hattersley, King & Flood, 2008). It has been analysed that many of the
marketers have argued about the concepts of social media in the business of restaurants. Having
an online presence is becoming too obvious for the individuals as well as for the businesses. If
the customers are unable to find any of the businesses online that means the business has no
presence in the market. It becomes a media of reliability as well. If the customers can easily find
the businesses online then he can get the information about the business and thus it is the proof
of the presence of the business in the market.
Conclusion:
The integration of web 2.0 technology in E-commerce has increased the customer orientation and
involvement through the medium of internet. This environment has provided the benefits to the
customers to get better access to the companies and their products. The integration of e
commerce with the social media has developed the social e commerce. It has provided may
benefits o the business such restaurant business but also have some of the issues and problems
associated with it. This study helps in identifying some of the problems that can be generated at
the time of implementing the social e commerce technology into the restaurant business. The
idea of these opportunities and problem helps the business owners to take better decisions and
exploit the opportunities available in order to enhance the business by using such technology.
Social commerce is about sharing the information, with the usage of information and
communication tools along with the user interaction. Social e-commerce helps in integrating the
customer’s interaction process with the business processes. This report concludes that along with
as there are many opportunities for the social media and social e commerce into restaurant
business of Australia, many issues are also there which needs to be overcome.

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