Social commerce attributes, customer engagement and repurchase intention in social commerce platforms: A stimulus–organism– response approach

The integration of social interactions with e-commerce has given rise to social commerce, creating digital environments where consumers engage with each other while shopping. Despite growing research on customer engagement in social commerce, there remains a limited understanding of how specific platform attributes influence engagement behaviors and subsequent purchasing decisions. This research addresses this gap by examining the relationship between social commerce attributes and repurchase intention through the lens of the Stimulus-Organism-Response theoretical framework. Our investigation focuses on four key platform characteristics, namely, content informativeness, service quality, webpage attractiveness, and traditional word-of-mouth communication. We hypothesize that these elements act as stimuli that shape customer engagement (the organism component), ultimately affecting intentions to make repeat purchases (the response component). To test these relationships, we administered an online questionnaire to 238 social commerce users in Palestine. Data analysis through structural equation modeling techniques revealed that content informativeness, service quality, and traditional word-of-mouth significantly enhanced customer engagement, while webpage attractiveness showed no significant effect. Furthermore, customer engagement demonstrated a strong positive influence on repurchase intention. These findings contribute to social commerce literature by identifying the relative importance of different platform attributes in fostering meaningful customer relationships. For practitioners, especially in emerging markets, our results suggest prioritizing content informativeness, responsive service, and encouraging traditional word-of-mouth promotion alongside digital strategies to develop more engaging social commerce platforms that drive customer loyalty.