The role of social support and actual social ties in social commerce: An exploratory study in Malaysia

• Main Authors: Abdul Rahim, Sabrina, Kasiran, Mohd Khairudin, Ahmad, Mazida
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: HF Commerce
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/14680/1/K6.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/14680/; http://www.kmice.cms.net.my/kmice2014/intro.asp

Commercial transactions within the social media are now getting a high attention among its users worldwide including Malaysians.People involve in these transactions or also known as the social commerce, with or without their conscious.The main intention of using social media in the first place is to socialize with friends and families.However, due to the trusted environment within their social network group, this has led them to acquire some additional information regarding the products or services from the group before making any advance commitment.Instead of getting information from the company website, social media has been an open and unstructured knowledge-base which managed to change the users’ style of making a purchasing decision.Hence, this study is an exploratory research that examines the level of social commerce involvement among the social media users in Malaysia.By using a convenience sample size of 120 drawn from the staff of Politeknik Tuanku Sultanah Bahiyah, Kulim, Kedah, this study aims to explore in details the role of social support (recommendation and information sharing) and actual social ties (friends and families) in social commerce particularly in Malaysia setting. The findings show that the social support given each other in the social media and the actual social ties that the users already possessed plays an important role towards Malaysians involvement in social commerce.