A Study of Antecedents of Switching Cost and Customer Retention in Social Commerce

The focus of this study is on how switching costs engages the customer to stay. By proposing the concepts of switching costs as different ways to provide psychological experience, this study develops a model that explores the antecedents of switching cost and its role in explaining customer retention in social commerce. For this, this study surveys 352 consumers using social commerce in Korea and analyzes the data using PLS-SEM. In the results, first, interactivity, sociability, social tie, and social identity among all of the sub-factors of switching cost increase switching cost. Second, switching costs increases customer retention. Finally, interactivity and social identity among the antecedents of switching costs increase customer retention through switching costs. The findings contribute to research on social commerce by paying scholarly attention to the psychological perspective characterized by switching costs.