Abstract

Facebook being the most popular social media platform in India, its prevalence among consumers, brand companies, and their growth through e-commerce needs to be studied to prove if word-of-mouth interactions among friends on Facebook induce one to shop online. A sample of 395 Facebook users who also buy online was studied to understand the interactions among technology acceptance factors, knowledge sharing factors and social influence factors upon the attitude towards Facebook as a source for online buying and the intention to use Facebook as a means for online shopping using structural equation modelling. As for TAM Factors, perceived enjoyment had insignificant role in sharing information on products among Facebook friends, and other factors did not induce one to indulge in WOM sharing. Among the knowledge sharing factors, the reputation of the recommender of product information and expected reciprocal benefit among Facebook users had less significant effect only, whereas altruism towards fellow Facebook users, trust in recommendations, expected relationships had no direct influence upon the attitude towards Facebook as a source for online buying. Among the social influence factors, brand social network based word of mouth communication, perceived social acceptance among friends in Facebook, and group and community identification among Facebook members did not induce one to use Facebook as means for shopping online. Whereas the need for online social connection was partly responsible for the intention to use Facebook as a means for online shopping (?=0. 145) connotes that Facebook as a platform for keeping in touch with friends overrides the purpose of using Facebook as a means for product information sharing.

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