Social Word of Mouth: How Trust Develops in the Market

TLDR

Consumer trust is essential for successfully promoting new products and services. The study develops a trust model from a social commerce perspective to investigate how social commerce constructs influence consumer trust in new products and services. The authors construct the model by empirically examining how social commerce constructs affect consumer trust. The empirical study finds that social commerce constructs—recommendations and referrals, ratings and reviews, and forums and communities—significantly and positively influence consumer trust, generating social word of mouth that shapes trust in new products and services.

Abstract

Consumer trust is essential for a business to successfully promote new products and services. This paper develops a trust model from a social commerce perspective by investigating the influence of social commerce constructs on consumer trust in new products and services. By using an empirical study, the results of this research indicate that social commerce constructs could be measured using three dimensions; these are recommendations and referrals, ratings and reviews, and forums and communities. Furthermore, social commerce constructs have a significant positive influence on consumer trust in new products and service. Alternatively, social commerce constructs could generate social word of mouth among potential customers regarding new products and services; this in turn can shape consumer trust. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.