Roles of social media in the retail sector in Tunisia: the case of Facebook

The purpose of this research is to study the effect of information on the viability of a relationship with a retail store via Facebook through the effects of perceived quality and perceived credibility of information the usefulness of the information source and the intention to continue to use this source by the consumer. The data from this study were collected from a survey via Internet. The survey was conducted on a real fan page of a retail enterprise. The sample consists of 210 users Tunisians. A model was developed based on existing research in the area of quality of service online, quality, credibility and information via Facebook and intention to use this source utility by the customer. Data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The results show that the quality and credibility of information have a positive and significant impact on the usefulness of the information source and indirectly leads to an intention to continue to use this source of information by the customer, especially the fan page of retail enterprises. On the practical level, this research enables the retail companies to consider social media and especially Facebook as a means of communication because of the importance of information and communication technologies and the growing number of Internet.