Enhancing The Flow Experience Of Consumers In China Through Interpersonal Interaction In Social Commerce

Social commerce is an emerging business trend that is growing rapidly in China. According to the 2015 McKinsey report. consumers in China spend 78 minutes per day on social commerce. Approximately 50% of customers in China make their purchase decisions according to recommendations from relatives and friends. It shows that social commerce has emerged as a new trend and has obtained more and more attention and importance.Although research on flow experience has recently received much attention, few studies have been published on the perceived interpersonal interaction factors of consumers and their influence in social commerce. In addition, few studies have focused on the impact of interpersonal interaction factors on flow experience. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework, this study examines the impact of interpersonal interaction factors (perceived expertise, similarity, and familiarity) on the formation of flow experience and its subsequent effects on purchase intention in the context of social commerce, our research model incorporates three interpersonal interaction factors(perceived expertise, perceived similarity and perceived familiarity) as the stimuli, flow experience is included in the research model as intervening process that mediates the relationships between the three interpersonal interaction factors and consumers purchase intention. We also investigate whether the impact of the three interpersonal interaction factors(perceived expertise, similarity, and familiarity) on flow experience differs between young users and old users.In the present study, we conduct a survey and collect 349 responses from users of a social shopping site in China. To test our measurement and structural model, we choose the structural equation modeling using partial least squares (PLS) estimation. Our results indicate that interpersonal interaction factors positively relate to flow experience and subsequently influence purchase intention. We also find differences between young and old users in this area, For young social shopping consumers, the impact of similarity perceived by consumers tends to be more influential than perceived expertise on the formation of flow state; For old social shopping consumers, perceived familiarity and similarity of other members on a social shopping site are more important drivers than perceived expertise in inducing flow experience.The present study makes an important contribution to research on enhancing the flow experience and consumers’purchase intention. it also contributes to the interpersonal interaction factors and flow experience in social commerce context. Besides, the findings of our research provide managers of social shopping sites useful and practical implications, especially about the different consumers in social shopping sites, at last, we talk about the directions for future research.