Social Commerce Investigation: Research Proposal and Analysis Report

This assignment presents a detailed analysis of a social commerce investigation, focusing on the role of trust in social networking sites and its impact on purchase intentions. The research explores the relationship between trust and purchase intentions, examining how social commerce strategies influence consumer behavior. The investigation includes a review of the background, purpose, and research hypotheses, which outline the connection between trust, information seeking, and purchase decisions. The research design involves data collection from undergraduate and postgraduate students using Facebook, employing both online and offline surveys. The analysis utilizes statistical tools, including Box's M test, and models are evaluated using Partial Least Square and Covariance based SEM, ensuring the reliability of the findings. The study highlights the significance of social presence and familiarity in online shopping environments, offering insights for strategic planners to enhance user purchase intentions and foster strong relationships with consumers. The assignment provides a comprehensive overview of the research methodology, data analysis, and key findings, offering valuable insights into the dynamics of social commerce.

Running head: SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
Social commerce investigation
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
Table of Contents
1. Background/current situation:................................................................................................2
2. Purpose of the Research:........................................................................................................2
3. Research hypotheses..............................................................................................................3
4. Research design and sample design.......................................................................................4
5. References..............................................................................................................................6

2SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
Selected Article: A social commerce investigation of the role of trust in a social
networking site on purchase intentions
1. Background/current situation:
The extensive development in the field of IT has resulted in the growth of numerous
online shopping environments such as Amazon (Liu & Guo, 2017). These platforms are very
much beneficial for the consumers as well as for the business men all around the world as
numerous overhead costs are reduced due to the use of these platforms. Trust is one of the
key issues faced by both the internal as well as the external stakeholders of the online
businesses. This issue is a huge source of concern for each and every stakeholder of these
shopping environments.
Thus, the researchers of the selected journal wanted to propose two models which can
be considered by the stakeholders of these online shopping businesses in order to address this
issue. The researchers of this article acknowledged that social commerce has been a part and
parcel of our lives thus; the solution of this problem can be very much beneficial for the
betterment of our society.
This research is very much significant for the readers as it provides a detailed
description relationship between trust in a platform and purchase intentions with the help of
two alternative models. These models can be very much useful to understand the significance
of social presence and familiarity required to access any online shopping environment.
2. Purpose of the Research:
The prime determination of this research is to explain the relationship between trust
and purchase intentions from the perspective of an e-vendor. The significance of maintaining

3SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
social commerce strategies by every online shopping environment was thoroughly discussed
in this research.
The proposed research will be very much useful for the strategic planners of the
online shopping environments to improve the purchase intention of the users. The
significance of the value creation activities which might play a significant role to maintain a
good relation with the buyers and the sellers of the online shopping environments was the
other contribution of the proposed research.
3. Research hypotheses
The relationship between the variables of this project can be understood in the first
place with the help of research hypothesis (Azizi et al., 2016). There are six different
hypotheses which were provided in this research paper.
There are diverse categories of testable propositions which were considered by the
authors of this research. According to the first hypothesis, “trust in a SNS increases
customer's purchase intentions from e-vendors”. Based on this hypothesis it can be said that
improvement of the purchase intentions can increase the trust of the consumers of the online
social shopping environments.
The second hypothesis suggests that “trust in a SNS increases social commerce
information seeking about a product”. Based on this hypothesis, it can be understood that user
generated contents in terms of product review can have a direct impact on the trust issues of
the consumers.
The third hypothesis mentions that “commerce information seeking increases
intentions to purchase from an e-vendor” and the fourth hypothesis states that “social
commerce information seeking increases the customer's familiarity with the online platform”.

4SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
The third hypothesis helps in understanding that “familiarity is one is directly related
with the purchase intentions of the consumers of the online shopping environment”. The
fourth hypothesis helps in “understanding that customer reviews and recommendations can
be very much significant to improve the personal connections of the strategic planners of the
shopping environments with the consumers”.
The fifth hypothesis of this research declares that “social commerce information
seeking increases the perceptions of social presence” and the sixth hypothesis of this research
highlights that “familiarity with the online platform increases intentions to purchase from e-
vendors on that platform”.
The fifth hypothesis helps in understanding that familiarity of a product is directly
related with the purchase intention of the consumers. The sixth hypothesis states that social
presence can be enhance the purchase intentions of the consumers of the online shopping
environments.
The final hypothesis of this research is “social presence increases intentions to
purchase from e-vendors”. Trust and purchase intentions can be improved using SNS based
on this hypothesis. This hypothesis also helps in understanding that theoretical frameworks
must be tried and tested before it is applied in a commercial business environment.
4. Research design and sample design
The reliability of this research paper is maintained with the help of the primary data
collection procedure where data was collected from the under graduate and the post graduate
students who uses Facebook on a regular basis (Curtis & Allen, 2018). There were 201
participants who took part in the data collection procedure and out of these 201 participants
55% of the total population are female and the rest 45% are males. Facebook was chosen as
the target platform in the data collection procedure of this research.

5SOCIAL COMMERCE INVESTIGATION
Data of this research was collected from both offline as well from online surveys;
survey was conducted from respondents who do not have any access to an internet connection
(Potter et al., 2017). At the same time, online contexts from other reliable sources were also
considered while collecting the data samples.
The analysis of the collected data was done with the help of statistical tools in order to
minimise any chances of biasedness. Data gathered from each group was analysed using
Box's M test which helps to compare the variations in multivariate samples (Sharif, Ismail &
Omar, 2017). The results of the data analysis indicated that the Box M’s value is 120.70
which is not significant as p=0.44. Both the online as well as the offline survey considered
the five point likert scale.
The proposed models of this research was analysed using Partial Least Square and
Covariance based SEM. Most of the internal consistency of the proposed models was
accessed using the Cronbach alphas and composite reliability score (Vaske, Beaman &
Sponarski, 2017). The issues coming from the predictable variables of this research paper
was addressed using multi-collinearity (Daoud, 2017). Thus, it can be said that the degree of
accuracy of the data analysis of this research is very much on the higher side.

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5. References
Azizi, R., Maleki, M., Moradi-Moghadam, M., & Cruz-Machado, V. (2016). The impact of
knowledge management practices on supply chain quality management and
competitive advantages. Management and Production Engineering Review, 7(1), 4-
12.
Curtis, K. R., & Allen, S. (2018). Target Market Identification and Data Collection Methods.
Daoud, J. I. (2017, December). Multicollinearity and regression analysis. In Journal of
Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 949, No. 1, p. 012009). IOP Publishing.
Hajli, N., Sims, J., Zadeh, A. H., & Richard, M. O. (2017). A social commerce investigation
of the role of trust in a social networking site on purchase intentions. Journal of
Business Research, 71, 133-141.
Liu, D., & Guo, X. (2017). Can trust and social benefit really help? Empirical examination of
purchase intentions for wearable devices. Information Development, 33(1), 43-56.
Potter, S., Del Negro, M., Topa, G., & Van der Klaauw, W. (2017). The advantages of
probabilistic survey questions. Review of Economic Analysis, 9(1), 1-32.
Sharif, S., Ismail, S., & Omar, Z. (2017). New Statistical Test for Quality Control in High
Dimension Data Set. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research, 12(16),
6241-6249.
Vaske, J. J., Beaman, J., & Sponarski, C. C. (2017). Rethinking internal consistency in
Cronbach's Alpha. Leisure Sciences, 39(2), 163-173.