Consumers' acceptance of social commerce during COVID-19 lockdown

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, especially marketing, leading to increased digital usage. Social media allows faster connectivity among people and gives marketers new pathways to engage with consumers. The lockdown dramatically reduced economic activity by numbers that are worth understanding. This study examines the numerous aspects contributing to the consumer's favorable opinions toward their social commerce intents and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using SEM, the data examination of 297 respondents established that applying the social support theory and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model to the proposed theoretical framework is significantly associated with social commerce intentions. The results state that all the direct hypotheses have been supported, confirming that social support, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, offline subjective norms, and online subjective norms are significantly associated with social commerce intentions. The results also indicated that Information Technology Infrastructure (ITI) moderated social support, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and online subjective norms.