Modeling and Quantifying the Impact of Personified Communication on Purchase Behavior in Social Commerce

Abstract

The advancement of mobile internet technology has enabled companies to leverage social media for e-commerce, where some use personified images and language to communicate with consumers. This paper investigates how personified communication affects consumer behavior in social commerce and whether consumers are willing to accept this new form of communication. Specifically, the study explores consumers’ willingness to accept personified communication in social commerce, considering the role of cognitive needs in regulating the internal mechanism. The paper proposes suggestions for enterprises to improve their social media communication and presents an improved model based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The model introduces perceived interaction as a new independent variable and adds cognitive needs as a regulatory variable, which is more suitable for social commerce. The study conducts a questionnaire survey online and analyzes the data using AMOS and SPSS. The results demonstrate that perceived usefulness and perceived interaction positively impact consumers’ attitudes, which subsequently influences their willingness to purchase. Furthermore, cognitive needs as a regulatory variable significantly affect the path from perceived usefulness to attitude and purchase intention.