Will you buy my books? Investigating influential factors for the sales of user-generated e-books on a social commerce platform

Abstract

In contrast to traditional e-commerce platforms, social commerce platforms offer users opportunities to communicate and profit, instead of merely rating and purchasing products. This study examines a sample of 1859 user-generated (UG) e-books from a popular Chinese social commerce website to identify the factors that impact consumers to purchase UG products. The network analysis results reveal that UG products on social commerce platforms exhibit varying sales patterns and form three distinct communities, comprising 1393, 291, and 175 e-books respectively. By employing the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), this study examines the impact of certain variables on UG product sales within three communities. These variables encompass central route factors such as product rating and rating numbers, peripheral route factors like follower adoption, and the elaboration likelihood encompassing ability (the proportion of experienced purchasers) and motivation (the proportion of purchased transactions, serving as an indicator of the gifted marketing strategies). The findings of this study have implications for the design and improvement of UG product marketing in social commerce platforms.