Purchasing through Social Platforms with Buy Buttons: A Basic Hierarchical Sequence

ABSTRACT Buy buttons are a call-to-action feature directing viewers to a follow-up purchase page, which allows users to make direct and actual purchases through social platforms. This paper examines two different direct purchase behaviors (general purchase behavior and impulse purchase behavior) through a social platform with buy buttons, and, for the purposes of study, proposes a model based on the standard learning hierarchy sequence for users’ perceived ease of purchase from a social platform, their attitude toward shopping on it, and, finally, their general and impulse purchase responses toward a seller’s item through the platform. Our study used the Chinese survey platform, Wjx.cn, to recruit participants, who were users of the Chinese social platform, WeChat. The model was then tested by structural equation modeling with both an estimation sample and a validation sample. The result showed that ease of purchase positively affects attitude toward using the social platform for shopping, which in turn positively influences two purchase intentions. General purchase intention also positively affects impulse purchase intention. These findings can also offer useful and valuable implications for social platforms wanting to monetize via buy buttons and sellers wanting to use buy buttons to increase direct purchases via social platforms.