Trusted Follower Factors That Influence Purchase Intention In Social Commerce

Abstract

Social commerce is an e-commerce platform where online shopper can shop and purchase online through social networking platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. There are many factors that influence online shopper to make a purchase through social commerce and one of the factors is follower. The follower is a social commerce user that can communicate with other follower through like, comment, and share another follower’s post. There are many types of follower in social commerce, such as trusted follower and fake follower. The trusted follower can influence online shoppers’ trust to purchase in social commerce. However, usually online shoppers do not know which follower is the trusted follower. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify the trusted follower factors that can influence purchase intention in social commerce. From the literature review, the trusted follower factors are identified, which is self-presentation, selfconfidence, social interaction, self-expressive and social sharing. Then, a questionnaire has been developed and distributed to the 33 experts who have the knowledge and experience regarding purchasing in social commerce. Based on the data received from the questionnaire, TOPSIS method has been applied in order to rank the trusted follower factors. The final rank shows that self-presentation is receiving the highest rank, followed by social sharing, self-confidence, social interaction and self-expressive. From the rank of trusted follower factors, we can recognize which one of the follower factors is the most influence factor that can influence purchase intention in social commerce.