Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237

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Computers in Human Behavior

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Full length article

Social presence, trust, and social commerce purchase intention: An

empirical research
Baozhou Lu a, *, Weiguo Fan b, Mi Zhou b
a
School of Economics & Management, China University of Petroleum, 66 West Chang Jiang Rd, Qingdao, 26655, China
b
Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 3007 Pamplin Hall, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Lacking the presence of human and social elements is claimed one major weakness that is hindering the
Received 30 May 2015 growth of e-commerce. The emergence of social commerce might help ameliorate this situation. Social
Received in revised form commerce is a new evolution of e-commerce that combines the commercial and social activities by
18 November 2015
deploying social technologies into e-commerce sites. Social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of
Accepted 29 November 2015
Available online 14 December 2015
shopping to e-commerce, increasing the degree of social presences in online environment. Drawing upon
the social presence theory, this study theorizes the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace by
proposing a set of three social presence variables. These variables are then hypothesized to have positive
Keywords:
Social commerce
impacts on trusting beliefs which in turn result in online purchase behaviors. The research model is
Social presence examined via data collected from a typical e-commerce site in China. Our findings suggest that social
Online social commerce marketplaces presence factors grounded in social technologies contribute significantly to the building of the trust-
Online trust worthy online exchanging relationships. In doing so, this paper confirms the positive role of social aspect
Purchase intention in shaping online purchase behaviors, providing a theoretical evidence for the fusion of social and
commercial activities. Finally, this paper introduces a new perspective of e-commerce and calls more
attention to this new phenomenon of social commerce.
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction ratings, comments, social proof, and reciprocity applications

A notable difference between online and offline markets that is
hindering the growth of e-commerce is the decreased presence of
human and social elements in the online environment (Cyr, Head,
Larios, & Pan, 2009; Hassanein, Head, & Chunhua, 2009). This
lean nature of online environment is often mentioned one of the
major drawbacks of e-commerce (Pavlou & Gefen, 2004). It is
claimed to eliminate social cues (e.g., body language), impose
additional unique risks (Lee, 1998), and consequently impair the
building of the trustworthy atmosphere online. However, this sit-
uation has been greatly improved recently by incorporating Web
2.0 capabilities into the e-commerce website. This new evolution is
commonly referred to as the birth of social commerce (SC) (Huang
& Benyoucef, 2013; Shin, 2013; Yadav, De Valck, Hennig-Thurau,
Hoffman, & Spann, 2013). New design features built upon social
media and Web 2.0 technologies, including recommendation lists,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: bzlu@upc.edu.cn (B. Lu), wfan@vt.edu (W. Fan), mizhou@vt.
edu (M. Zhou).
(Huang & Benyoucef, 2013; Olbrich & Holsing, 2011), enhance
customer participation and allow them to collect socially rich in-
formation, resulted in a more trustworthy and sociable online
transaction environment. Although these positive influences have
been widely recognized, the social aspect of e-commerce has not
been completely understood, nor their impacts on purchasing
decision.
In this study, Social Presence Theory (SPT) is employed as the
theoretical lens to understand the impacts of social shopping fea-
tures in online SC marketplaces. To account for various aspects of
social commerce, a multi-dimensional conceptualization of social
presence is proposed based on previous studies (Biocca, Harms, &
Burgoon, 2003; Caspi & Blau, 2008; Shen & Khalifa, 2009). Then
their influences on purchasing decision are examined in a research
model by using trust as the key mediating variable. In sum, this
study tries to offer several potential contributions.
First, it re-conceptualizes social presence as a multi-
dimensional construct in social commerce context, and thus,
overcomes the limitations of the unidimensional conceptualization
in literature. In doing so it sheds light on the nature of social aspect

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.057
0747-5632/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
226 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
in SC context by using SPT, contributing a set of social factors that
have impacts on trust. Second, it offers a full understanding on
online purchase behaviors by considering the influences of both
social factors and structural factors. Finally, it discloses the impor-
tance of the social aspect on online purchase behaviors, calling
more attention to this relatively new but important research area in
future.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We begin with the
theoretical development, including discussing the emergence of
social commerce phenomenon and proposing a multi-
dimensional model of social presence. Next, we present the
research model and the hypotheses, followed by a description of
the research methodology. The paper then presents the research
results, which is followed by a discussion of key findings and
contributions, as well as the implications for both research and
practice. Finally, we discuss the limitations of this study, the
possible direction of future research, and provide the concluding
remarks.
2. Theoretical background and conceptual development
2.1. Social commerce
As a relatively new phenomenon, social commerce has evolved
quickly in practice (Barnes, 2014; Kim & Park, 2013; Wang & Zhang,
2012). A recent report by McKinsey (Chui et al., 2012) estimates that
the use of social technologies can contribute $900 billion to $1.3
trillion in value, and that up to 1/3 of consumer spending is subject
to influence from social commerce. Another report by Barclays
(2012) indicates that by 2021 nearly half of the UK consumer
population will be engaged in social commerce. The term of social
commerce was first coined by Yahoo in 2005 to denote online
places where people can share experiences, get advices from one
another, find goods and services and then purchase them (Mardsen,
2010). Its early applications can be found in the late 1990s when
Amazon introduced the rating and review systems. The increased
popularity of social technologies over last couple of years, including
social media, web 2.0 and social networks, has spawned an
expanded range of social commerce tools and opportunities (Liang
& Turban, 2011; Mardsen, 2010).
Recently, SC generally refers to as the delivery of e-commerce
activities and transactions via the social media environment (Liang
& Turban, 2011). It is viewed as a new evolution of e-commerce
(Huang & Benyoucef, 2013; Wang & Zhang, 2012). Liang and Turban
(2011) summarized three major attributes of SC: social technolo-
gies, community interactions, and commercial activities. Thus, SC
can be considered a subset of e-commerce that involves using social
technologies to assist e-commerce transactions and activities
(Yadav et al., 2013). In essence, SC is a combination of commercial
and social activities (Liang & Turban, 2011; Zhou, Zhang, &
Zimmermann, 2013). Traditional e-commerce sites, such as
Amazon and Taobao, have added social applications and content to
help people to connect where they usually buy. Considering the
dominance of marketplace-based e-commerce like Amazon and
Taobao, we try to uncover how social factors engendered by social
applications shape the beliefs and behaviors of buyers in online SC
marketplaces.
2.2. Social aspect of online shopping
Shopping has always been a social activity. Consumers tend to
be influenced by their social interactions with others when making
purchase decisions (Godes et al., 2005). E-commerce focuses more
on maximizing efficiency and the one-way interactions between
customers and the system (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013). Online
transactions are usually facilitated and guaranteed by structural
factors such as escrow services and credit card guarantees (Fang
et al., 2014; Pavlou & Gefen, 2004). Social technologies reintro-
duce the social side into online purchasing process, making online
purchasing a more social experience. They also greatly increases
the firm ability to directly initiate and manage social interaction
either impossible or too costly in the past (Chen, Wang, & Xie,
2011). Thus, while e-business concentrates more on business
goals, SC is more oriented toward social goals, such as networking,
collaborating and information sharing, with a secondary focus on
shopping (Wang & Zhang, 2012). Online buyers are able to get ac-
cess to social knowledge and experiences to support them in better
understanding their purchase purposes, and in making more
informed and accurate decisions (Dennison, Bourdage-Braun, &
Chetuparambil, 2009).
While prior studies offer insights on how social interactions
shape buyer behaviors, such as, word-of-mouth (WOM), obser-
vational learning, and social support (Amblee & Bui, 2011; Chen
et al., 2011; Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009), they may have
overlooked the overall effects of the social context (Kreijns,
Kirschner, & Jochems, 2003). In SC, buyers are able to get more
social cues to support their purchasing decisions by collecting
more information from the communities, by observing the actions
of other buyer, or by interacting with online sellers. Huang and
Benyoucef (2013) proposed a conceptual model to summarize
the social design features of SC along four layers including the
individual, conversation, community and commerce levels, shown
in Table 1. They argued that the key distinction between e-com-
merce and social commerce is that the former usually only sees an
individual layer while the latter usually sees a community built on
conversation. We argue that the social design features applied in
these four layers enrich social information, make buyers feel more
connected with others, and finally enhance a social context online.
SPT has been indicated a suitable theoretical lens for under-
standing the social context in e-commerce. SPT suggests that so-
cial presence is built upon signals transmitted in a communication
medium, such as virtual agents (Hess, Fuller, & Campbell, 2009),
IT-enabled human-like interaction (Pavlou, Liang, & Xue, 2007),
socially-rich text, personalized greetings (Gefen & Straub, 2004),
chat (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005) or message boards (Cyr, Hassanein,
Head, & Ivanov, 2007). Thus, the social design features will
convey various types of social presence (seen in Table 1) that will
be discussed in next section.
2.3. A multi-dimensional conceptualization of social presence in
social commerce context
The concept of social presence is grounded in social presence
theory that elaborates the ability of a communication medium to
transmit social cues (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Defined as
“the salience of the other in a mediated communication and the
consequent salience of their interpersonal interactions” (Short
et al., 1976), SP is viewed as an inherent quality of a communica-
tion medium. From a psychological standpoint, SP also closely re-
lates to intimacy and psychological closeness (Short et al., 1976). In
this perspective, SP is often measured as the perceived warmth,
conveying a feeling of human contact, sociability, and sensitivity
embodied in a medium (Rice & Case, 1983). Most of prior e-com-
merce research has adopted unidimensional model of SP, focusing
on the capability of website to convey a sense of human warmth
and sociability.
However, this unidimensional conceptualization of SP might
not be suitable for virtual community, where people not only
interact with the computer mediated medium, but also need to
communicate with other members and immerse themselves into
 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237 227

Table 1
Social design features and social presence (adapted from Huang & Benyoucef, 2013).

Design principle Design features Amazon Taobao Dimension of SP

SP of web Perception of others SP of interaction

Individual Personal profile √ √ △ e e

Context profile √ √ △ e e
Activity profile √ √ △ e e
Conversion Social content presentation √ √ △ e e
Topic focus √ √ △ △ e
Notification

e △ e
Information sharing √ √ △ △ e
Community Community support
√ e △ e
Connection
√ e △ e
Relationship maintenance

e △ e
Commerce Group purchase
√ e △ e
Social proof √ √ e △ e
Authority √ √ e e
Reciprocity √ √ △ △ e
Participation

e e e
Social ads and application

e e e
Messenger tools with sellers
√ e e △

√ ¼ covered,
¼ uncovered, △ ¼ relevant, e ¼ irrelevant.

the virtual community. Thus, a multidimensional conceptualiza-
tion of SP is advocated. Shen and Khalifa (2009) propose a three-
dimension model of SP including awareness, affective SP and
cognitive SP. Caspi and Blau (2008) indicate three different
conceptualizations of SP for online learning communities, i.e., as
perception of other given the subjective quality of a medium, as
self-projection onto the group, and as social identification. Tu
(2002) suggests SP in online learning communities should have
three dimensions: social context, online communication, and
interactivity. Since social commerce is seen as the combination of
commercial and community activities (Huang & Benyoucef, 2013;
Liang & Turban, 2011), SP in social commerce should also be
conceptualized as a multi-dimensional construct.
Based upon prior research, we propose a three-dimension
model of SP, named respectively, SP of the web, perception of
others, and SP of interaction with sellers. Our conceptualization is
akin to the SP model of Caspi and Blau (2008), which also contains
three factors: perception of the others, medium's impersonality,
and medium as interaction enabling.
SP of the web refers to the capability of a website to convey a
sense of human warmth and sociability (Gefen & Straub, 2004;
Hassanein et al., 2009). It might be the most adopted perspec-
tive in prior e-commerce research, reflecting the inherent “sub-
jective quality” of website. Most websites do not facilitate direct
interaction with another human, but this does not mean that a
website cannot convey social presence. A website, as the container
of multimedia contents and socially rich text, can convey a sense
of personal, sociable and sensitive human contact. Other IT arti-
facts embedded into a website, e.g. physically embodied agents
(Lee, Jung, Kim, & Kim, 2006), 3D avatar or videos, and Text-To-
Speech voice (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005), also help to enhance the
perceived SP. The provision of recommendations and consumer
reviews in an e-commerce site also increases the SP of the website
(Kumar & Benbasat, 2006). Table 1 indicates the social design
feature in SC that build up the perceived SP of a websiteGefe, such
as personal profile, context profile, social content, and informa-
tion sharing.
The second dimension is perception of others (Caspi & Blau,
2008), also named awareness. Perception of others refers to the
extent to which other social actors appear to exist and react to the
users in online communities (Shen & Khalifa, 2009). Awareness in
an online community is achieved through status updating, self-
presentation features and continuous participation in online dis-
cussion. In SC, a few social applications increase the awareness of
other buyers who might feel interests in the same product or topic.
For instance, social proof - a type of social application to resolve
customer uncertainty about what to do or buy (e.g., the option of
“customers who bought this also bought”) - will give buyers a hint
on the existence of other buyers and their purchasing interest.
WOM (or recommendation and review system) can also increase
perception of other online buyers. WOM valence indicates the
percentage of prior buyers who hold positive or negative opinions,
and WOM volume plays an informative role by increasing the de-
gree of buyer awareness (Chen et al., 2011). Revealing observational
learning information (Chen et al., 2011), which contains the
discrete signals expressed by the actions of other consumers (e.g.
the percentage of adoption, wish list, Facebook “share” and “Like”
button), will also let a buyer be aware of others buyers and their
actions. Other social applications relevant for perception of others
are suggested in Table 1, including reciprocity, group purchase,
connection, etc. Since buyers in a SC marketplace can rely on
multiple sources to infer the presence of other buyers, social
presence of others should be measured as the composite latent
construct that is jointly influenced by the measures (MacKenzie,
Podsakoff, & Jarvis, 2005).
The third dimension is SP of interaction with sellers (Caspi &
Blau, 2008; Qiu & Benbasat, 2005). In traditional e-commerce,
sellers rarely engage direct interactions with buyers. But online
chat tools make these interactions possible. They can be used as an
effective marketing channel for sales, communication, and
customer services. While prior studies indicate that SP is more
often conveyed through the “imaginary interactions” with the web
interface (Hassanein & Head, 2007; Hess et al., 2009), the
computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools such as customer
support chat (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005) and message boards (Cyr et al.,
2007) can also convey social presence. This perspective of SP as
direct interactions with other users have been suggested in online
community research. For instance, Caspi and Blau (2008) pointed
out that “medium as interaction enabling” is one factor of SP. Tu
(2002) also considered interactivity as one dimension of SP. In SC,
CMC tools have been used as one effective way to communicate
with buyers. For instance, Aliwangwang, an instant message tool
developed by Alilibaba for its commercial interactions, has owned
more than 100 million active users. While for JD.com, another
228 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
leading online marketplace in China, QQ e a third party developed
instant message tool e is used by its members for the daily trans-
actions. Considering the extensive usage of CMC tools in practice,
we argue that interaction with sellers is one important dimension
of SP.
2.4. Trust in social commerce marketplace
Trust is a central aspect in many economic transactions
(Fukuyama, 1995; Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). When a
social environment cannot be regulated through rules and cus-
toms, people tend to adopt trust as a reducer of social complexity
(Luhmann, 1979). This is especially true for online transactions
due to the absence of effective regulation over the opportunistic
behaviors of e-vendors. Thus, trust is often considered the
foundation of e-commerce (Keen, Ballance, Chan, & Schrump,
1999) and the most crucial factor for the success of e-com-
merce (Wang & Emurian, 2005). Prior e-commerce research has
focused on finding key antecedents of trust or disclosing the
trust building mechanism (e.g., Lu, Hirschheim, & Schwarz, 2015;
Ou & Sia, 2009). These studies focused more on the impacts of
functionality (e.g. usability, ease of use and usefulness) and
institutional structures (e.g. structural assurance, situational
normality and feedback mechanisms), paying very little atten-
tion to social factors (Kim & Park, 2013) except social presence of
web interface (e.g., Gefen & Straub, 2004; Hassanein & Head,
2007). Trust, indeed, is built through social interactions with
other people and the surrounding environment. Thus, social
context should be an important but neglected characteristic of
trust in prior literature.
Trust is a complex and multifaceted construct (Gefen,
Karahanna, & Straub, 2003). It has been conceptualized in a vari-
ety of ways. McKnight, Choudhury, and Kacmar (2002) tried to
remove some of the conceptual confusion on trust by separating
beliefs from intended behavior based on the theory of reasoned
action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). They put trust into two broad
categories: trusting beliefs and trusting intentions and conceptu-
alized trust as a set of specific beliefs including integrity, benevo-
lence and ability. This conceptualization of trust is akin to that of
other studies adopting SPT (e.g., Hess et al., 2009). Then trusting
beliefs is conceptualized as a second-order construct in this study.
Two types of trustees exist for a SC marketplace from a buyer
perspective (Lu et al., 2015): marketplace (e.g., Amazon and eBay)
and sellers resided in the marketplace. Trust in online sellers is
considered as the major construct in this study, while trust in
Integrity
Social Presence of
Web
H1
Perception of
Others H2
H3
Social Presence of
Interaction with
Sellers
Comment
Fig. 1. Research model.
marketplace is taken as control variable.
3. Research model and hypothesis development
The proposed research model is depicted in Fig. 1. In a SC
marketplace, online sellers can overcome the more impersonal,
anonymous and automated stigma of online shopping by making
their virtual storefront socially rich (Kumar & Benbasat, 2002).
Perceived social presences should help buyer shape their trusting
beliefs towards sellers. The model presents that each dimension of
social presence has a positive influence on trust in the sellers,
which in turn, will shape online purchasing behaviors. The hy-
potheses are explained in detail as below.
3.1. Social presence of web and trust
E-commerce is, in essence, a type of information system. Buyers
conduct online transactions mainly through interacting with the
website. These buyer-web interactions could be viewed similar to
interpersonal interactions (Pavlou et al., 2007) if the website were
treated a social actor (Kumar & Benbasat, 2002). Since human
interaction is viewed as a precondition of trust (Blau, 1964) the
buyer-web interactions should also contribute to the building of
trust online. A high SP website conveys more information and social
cues, and thus, is perceived to be more transparent; whereas in a
more transparent environment the untrustworthy behaviors will
be inhibited. The SP of a website will also shorten the perceived
social distance between buyers and sellers (Pavlou et al., 2007). And
it is easier to form a trustworthy relationship when the perceived
social distance is short. Therefore, the SP of a web should enhance
buyers' trust towards online sellers. Prior studies have also sug-
gested a positive impact of the SP of a website on trust (Hassanein
et al., 2009). Thus, in a SC marketplace, the SP of a web created by an
online seller will make him/her more trustworthy. Hence, we hy-
pothesize that:
H1. The SP of web of will have a positive impact on trust in online
sellers.
3.2. Perception of others and trust
Shopping has always been social activities. Social psychology
research indicates that human can learn from and be affected by
the knowledge and experiences of others who they know or trust
(Mardsen, 2010). Persuasion can be extremely effective when it
Benevolent Competence
H4 Purchase
Trust In Sellers Intention
Trust In Perceived Price
Trust Disposition
Marketplace Fairness
 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
comes from similar others (Cialdini, 2001), even if they are
random strangers. Marketing literature also suggests that con-
sumers' beliefs, attitudes and behaviors tend to be influenced by
their social interactions with others when they make purchase
decisions (Godes et al., 2005). When shopping online, buyers are
hard to validate the information offered by the sellers. However,
they can rely on their peers who have visited the same storefront
for indirect cues (Cialdini, 2001). Buyers not only can interact
with the e-commerce system, but also are able to make sense of
the existence of other buyers based on various cues resided in
social applications such as customers' reviews (WOM), pick lists,
popularity lists and transactional history. If social cues send
positive signals (e.g. positive WOM valence, most of visitors wish
to get this product, most of visitors have purchased this product
…), a buyer will feel more confident in the seller's ability,
benevolence and integrity in providing good services. Marketing
literature also indicates that when people observe the purchase
actions of all previous individuals, this publicly observed infor-
mation outweighs their own private information in shaping their
beliefs and behaviors (Chen et al., 2011). As a result, people tend
to follow the lead of their online predecessors and become
engaged in a type of “herd behavior” (Chen et al., 2011).
Accordingly, we have:
H2. Perception of others will have a positive impact on trust in online
sellers.
3.3. Social presence of interaction and trust
Online chat tools such as QQ, MSN or chat plug-ins embedded in
the website have been used for sellerebuyer interactions, through
which more social information will be revealed to buyers to form
their trusting beliefs. In order to sustain a good customer rela-
tionship, several methods are often employed, such as, choosing
special words and sending the emotional icons like smile. For
instance, a special language style, termed “Taobao Style”, is popular
in Taobao communities. Buyers are greeted with the word of “Qin”
(means “my dear” and rarely used in daily communication in Chi-
nese culture but extensively used in online context). The traded
goods are called “Baobei” (means “treasured objects”). “Taobao
Style”, in together with other communication methods, make
sellers feel friendlier and warmer, and thereby, will help to shorten
the perceived distance between them. Thus, the CMC chat tools are
also able to convey a sense of social presence. Buyers are also able to
make sense of the attitudes, benevolence, and integrity of sellers
via these compute mediated interactions, thereby forming beliefs
on sellers. The computer mediated interactions, such as, email and
teleconference, have been argued to be able to convey SP and in
turn to shape user beliefs (Qiu & Benbasat, 2005; Zack, 1993). In
online learning communities, the text-based online discussion
(Medium as interaction enabling) is found to be positively corre-
lated with the cognitive aspects of learning (Caspi & Blau, 2008).
Hence, we have:
H3. SP of interaction will have a positive impact on trust in online
sellers.
3.4. Trust and purchase intention
Purchase intention is defined in this study as a buyer's intention
to purchase from a seller resided in a SC marketplace. According to
the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991), behavioral intention
is the most influential predictor of behavior. Thus, in this study we
use purchase intention to represent purchase behaviors.
229
Taking part in online transactions requires buyers to deal with
the social complexity associated with the opportunistic behaviors
of sellers. Trust can be viewed as a significant antecedent belief that
creates a positive attitude toward the transaction behavior
(Jarcenpaa, Tractinsky, & Vitale, 2000), which in turn leads to
transaction intentions. Trust helps reduce the social complexity and
vulnerability that a buyer feels in e-commerce by allowing the
buyer to subjectively rule out undesirable yet possible behaviors of
the e-vendor. As such, trust can help buyers reduce their risk per-
ceptions when dealing with online vendors, thereby encouraging
them to engage in the “trust-related behaviors” with e-vendors,
such as sharing information or making purchases (McKnight et al.,
2002). Prior studies have shown that trusting beliefs in specific
online vendors are correlated with transaction intentions with
those same vendors (McKnight & Chervany, 2002; Pavlou, 2003).
We hypothesize that the same logic can be extended to online
sellers in a SC marketplace. Accordingly, we have:
H4. Trust in online sellers (trusting beliefs) will increase purchase
intention.
3.5. Control variables
The model incorporates additional control variables known to
affect trust and online behavior that are described below.
Online comment and rating systems provide fine-grained in-
formation about a seller's reputation that is likely to engender a
buyer's trust in a seller (Pavlou & Dimoka, 2006). Positive com-
ments and ratings help buyer to form positive beliefs in sellers.
Thus, its effect on trust in seller is controlled.
Trusting disposition is the degree that people in general can be
trusted. Since trusting disposition has shown to increase trust, we
control for its effect on trust in seller.
Trust transference logic (Stewart, 2003) indicates that trust may
be transferred from a place, an industry association, or an entity to
another individual. In online context, trust of a marketplace can
transfer to the sellers associated with that marketplace. Prior
research also indicates that trust in marketplace increases buyer
intention to engage in online transactions (Lu et al., 2015). Thus, its
effects on both trust in seller and purchase intention need to be
controlled.
Consumers' perception of price fairness has been known to
significantly affect their reactions toward sellers. Previous studies
have found that perceived price fairness directly affects consumers'
purchase intention (e.g., Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986).
Therefore, its effect on purchase intention is also controlled.
4. Research methodology
Following Gefen and Straub (2004), the free simulation experi-
ment methodology is used in this study. In a free simulation
experiment, subjects are exposed to the research setting that
simulates or duplicates the real-world situation and respond
naturally to tasks before answering questions about beliefs, atti-
tudes, and observation (Fromkin & Streufert, 1976). Since no vari-
ables are specifically manipulated, the technique is known as a
“free” simulation experiment. The strength of this technique is that
it allows the researcher to observe and measure the subjects
engaged in real world task.
In selecting the sites to be included in this study, we deliber-
ately chose online marketplaces that are well known and widely
used. Eventually, Taobao is selected as the real-world setting
where subjects are required to complete tasks. Taobao is the
largest online marketplace in China. By 2010 it owned over 370
million members. Transactions on Taobao totaled over 1 trillion
230 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
RMB in 2012 and reached 35 billion RMB on the single day of
November 11 (double 11) of 2013. More recently Taobao has
evolved into a SC marketplace as indicated in Table 1. Hence,
Taobao represents a typical SC marketplace and is qualified as the
free simulation experiment site.
4.1. Instrument development
Wherever possible, the measurement items were adapted from
previous research. All constructs were measured by reflective in-
dicators except for the construct of “social presence of others”,
which was measured with formative items. Information regarding
on others buyers revealed by social applications can be summarized
into three types, including others who might feel interest with the
product (e.g., the wish list and the share button), others who have
actually bought the product (e.g., sales record), and others who
have provided positive information about the product (e.g., WOM).
Therefore, social presence of others can be measured by these three
formative indicators.
As the original reflective items were in English, we used the
following procedures to ensure the translation validity. First, a
researcher whose native language is Chinese forward translated the
items into Chinese. Next, another researcher independently back-
ward translated the items into English. Subsequently, the two re-
searchers compared and discussed the two English versions to
develop the first Chinese version of the items. The preliminary in-
strument was pilot tested and reviewed by two faculty and three
doctoral students in IS field for clarity and face validity. Minor re-
visions were made based on their feedbacks. Finally, the two initial
translators checked this version together and finalized the Chinese
instrument.
We measured all items using seven-point Likert scales ranging
from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). A further pretest of
the survey instrument was conducted with 105 subjects, using the
same data collection method that would be applied in the actual
data collection. The items were modified following the procedures
recommended by Churchill (1979). Please see the Appendix A for
the scales.
4.2. Experimental procedure
The MBA and senior undergraduate students in business schools
from two universities of China took part in the experiment. The
classes in which the experiments were performed were randomly
chosen with permission from the instructors. The subjects were
assured that the results would only be reported in aggregate to
guarantee their anonymity and confidentiality. The activity was
performed during class hours in two similar computer labs. In this
way, exogenous variance relating to hardware issues, network
response time, browser, purchase activity, and so on, was
controlled. Subjects were first given a brief introduction of the
study. After that, they were required to go through the process of
buying from Taobao without actually completing the transaction by
following guidance. To simulate the real world situation as closely
as possible, subjects were allowed to freely select the products
based on their real needs. Immediately after completing the task,
subjects filled out a web-based instrument. The purpose to do this
is to refresh, in the mind of the buyers, the nature of the interaction
with the seller, thereby increasing the content validity by collecting
responses based on a recent activity. Finally, out of the 640 ques-
tionnaires distributed, 546 valid responses were received after
removing invalid responses including those containing more than
five missing values and those with the same answer to all ques-
tions, resulting in a valid rate of 85.3%.
4.3. Sample statistics
Table 2 summarizes the descriptive information of the dataset.
About 53.1% of the respondents were male, and 46.9% were female.
A majority of respondents had online purchasing experiences
(96.2%) and were regular Internet consumers (90% of subjects
purchase online at least once a month). As the free simulation
experiment was conducted in universities, a majority (77.3%) of the
respondents were students aged between 18 and 30. Even though
the subjects are mainly MBA and undergraduate students, they
without a doubt are the main Internet consumers in China. About
60% of Internet consumers in China are aged between 18 and 30
years old (iClick, 2014), and more than 60% of Taobao buyers have
undergraduate education or above (Lu, Zhao, & Wang, 2010). The
use of students sample for e-commerce research was also advo-
cated in previous studies (Walczuch & Lundgren, 2004). Thus, we
believe that our sample represents the major segment of Internet
consumers in China and should be appropriate for this study.
Following Armstrong and Overton (1977), nonresponse bias was
assessed by verifying that respondent demographics (age, gender
and education) were not significantly distinct from current Chinese
Internet consumers (iClick, 2014; iResearch, 2013).
5. Data analysis and result
The partial least square (PLS) approach was used for the data
analysis considering its ability to deal with the formative constructs
(Gefen, Straub, & Boudreau, 2000; Goo, Kishore, & Rao, 2009). PLS
is a “second-generation” technique that has gained increasing
popularity in the field of marketing or information systems in
recent years (Becker 1991; Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Mena, 2012). For
accurate estimation and enough statistical power, minimum sam-
ple size check is performed by following Chin (1998). A strong rule
of thumb suggests that the sample size should be at least equal to
the larger of the following: (1) ten times the scale with the largest
number of formative indicators, or (2) ten times the largest number
of structural paths directed at a particular construct in the struc-
tural model (Chin, 1998). The sample size for current study is 552,
exceeding the minimum demand of sample size (10*7 ¼ 130) ac-
cording to the rule of thumb. Therefore, our sample size is
adequate. Next we will discuss the results of measurement and
structural model with the use of PLS.
5.1. Measurement model assessment
We first assessed the second-order construct of trusting beliefs
by comparing two separate models by using LISREL (Goo et al.,
2009). Model 1 hypothesizes that a unidimensional first-order
factor accounts for the variance among all measurement items of
the second-order construct (trust in seller) in this study. Model 2
hypothesizes a second-order factor that accounts for the patterns of
covariance among the first-order factors as conceptualized in this
study. Comparison of Model 1 (c2 ¼ 381.4, d.f. ¼ 35, RMR ¼ 0.061)
and Model 2 (c2 ¼ 109.6, d.f. ¼ 32, RMR ¼ 0.035), indicates that
Model 2 is a better-fitting model with significant changes in chi-
square (Dc2 ¼ 271.8, Dd.f. ¼ 3; p < 0.0001). Items loaded signifi-
cantly on their assigned first-order factors, which in turn highly
 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237 231

Table 2
Sample statistics (n ¼ 546).

Measure Items Frequency Percentage

Gender Male 290 53.1%

Female 256 46.9%
Age 24 or below 246 45.1%
>24 and 30 176 32.2%
>30 and 35 81 14.8%
>35 and 40 39 7.1%
41 or above 4 0.7%
Have purchased online Yes 525 96.2%
No 21 3.8%
Frequency of purchase online Several times a week 37 6.8%
Several times a month 190 34.8%
Once a month 267 48.9%
Less than once a month 32 5.9%
Never 20 3.7%
Types of product purchased online Clothing and footwear 236 43.2%
Localized service 73 13.4%
Computers and accessories 67 12.3%
Food and health products 35 6.4%
Books 39 7.1%
Skin care & cosmetics 21 3.8%
Sporting gear 19 3.5%
Others 56 10.3%

Table 3
The assessment of measurement model for constructs.

Constructs # of items Composite reliability Cronbach's alpha AVE Std loadings

Integrity 4 .92 .89 .75 IN1 (0.85) IN2 (0.86) IN3 (0.89) IN4 (0.86)
Benevolence 4 .90 .85 .69 BEN1 (0.81) BEN2 (0.84) BEN3 (0.86) BEN4 (0.82)
Competence 4 .88 .83 .67 COM1 (0.81) COM2 (0.85) COM3 (0.79) COM4 (0.82)
Trust in seller 3 .91 .92 .77 IN (0.90) BEN (0.87) COM (0.87)
Purchase intention 3 .93 .88 .81 PI1 (0.89) PI2 (0.91) PI3 (0.90)
Trust in marketplaces 4 .93 .89 .76 TIM1 (0.88) TIM2 (0.88) TIM3 (0.86) TIM4 (0.86)
Social presence of web 4 .93 .90 .77 SPW1 (0.87) SPW2 (0.88) SPW3 (0.90) SPW5 (0.87)
Social presence of others 3 e e e SPO1 (0.18) SPO2 (0.64) SPO3 (0.39)
Social presence of interaction 4 .89 .84 .68 SPI1 (0.81) SPI2 (0.77) SPI3 (0.87) SPI4 (0.85)
Comment 4 .94 .92 .81 C1 (0.85) C2 (0.92) C3 (0.92) C4 (0.90)
Trust disposition 5 .92 .89 .70 TD1 (0.72) TD3 (0.87) TD4 (0.87) TD5 (0.87) TD6 (0.85)
Perceived price fairness 4 .94 .92 .80 PPF1 (0.85) PPF2 (0.80) PPF3 (0.89) PPF4 (0.86)

Note: All item loadings are significant at 0.01; the composite reliability score is calculated with the formula prescribed by Fornell and Larcker (1981).

loaded on the second-order construct. The LISREL statistics
confirmed our hypothesis of trusting in sellers as a second-order
construct.
A measurement model analysis for the reflective constructs was
conducted via the component part of PLS. We first refined the
measurement model by deleting the items with low loadings and
cross loadings. The retained items are shown in Table 4. Internal
reliability was verified with all composite reliability scores and
Cronbach's Alpha of the latent variables exceeding the 0.70
threshold, as shown in Table 3. Convergent validity is often
demonstrated by meeting the following criteria: significant item
loadings (>0.70) for each construct, adequate internal reliabilities
(>0.70), and high AVE (average variance extracted) scores (>0.50).
Evidence from Table 3 shows that all these criteria have been
satisfied for each construct, indicating convergent validity was
established. As shown in Table 4, the square root of the AVE for each
construct (diagonal term) exceeds the correlations between the
construct and other constructs (off-diagonal terms), providing
strong evidence of discriminant validity. A low to moderate corre-
lation coefficient (<0.60) (in Table 4) is also often considered evi-
dence of discriminant validity.
The formative items might suffer from multicollinearity

Table 4
Correlations of latent variables and evidence of discriminant validity.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Trust in seller 1 .88

Purchase intention 2 .59 .90
Trust in marketplaces 3 .46 .46 .87
Social presence of web 4 .57 .40 .32 .88
Social presence of interaction 5 .64 .47 .42 .65 .83
Comment 6 .50 .50 .45 .30 .41 .90
Trust disposition 7 .52 .42 .42 .43 .49 .37 .84
Perceived price fairness 8 .44 .53 .35 .35 .42 .30 .28 .89

Note: (1) Bolded diagonal elements are the square root of average variance extracted (AVE).These values should exceed inter-construct correlations (off-diagonal elements) for
adequate discriminant validity; (2) Social Presence of Others is excluded since it is measured by formative indicators.
232 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
(Diamantopoulos, 2011). The degree of multicollinearity for the
formative items is measured by the variance inflation factor (VIF),
which was calculated via SPSS. All the VIFs (1.99, 1.31, 1.83,
respectively) are below the rule of thumb of 10 (or even the more
conservative value of 5) (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham,
2006), indicating that multicollinearity is not a serious concern
for the study.
The extent of common method bias was assessed with three
tests. First, Harman's one-factor test (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee,
& Podsakoff, 2003) was performed by including all reflective
items with both principal axis factoring and principal component
factoring. In both cases more than one factor emerged. The
variance explained by the largest factor was 36.2% for principal
axis factoring, and 37% for principal component factoring. Both
results are below the critical value of 50%. Second, the marker
variable approach was performed by first identifying one maker
items that are not included in the research model and do not
have an explicit theoretical influence on the construct in the
research model. The correlations between the marker item and
the items of interest have to be caused by the method (Ro € nkko
€&
Ylitalo, 2011). The mean correlation coefficients values for the
marker item is 0.035, indicating insignificant influence of the
CMV. Results of the marker variable analysis are omitted for
simplicity. Third, the correlation matrix (Table 4) does not indi-
cate any highly correlated factors (highest correlation is r ¼ 0.65),
whereas evidence of common method bias should have resulted
in extremely high correlations (r > 0.90) (Pavlou et al., 2007).
These results indicate that the CMV is unlikely to distort the
results of this study.
5.2. Structural model and hypothesis testing
The results of testing the structural model are shown in Fig. 2.
The t-values for the path coefficients were estimated via the
bootstrapping procedure (Chin, 1998). The R2 numbers represent
the percentage of variance explained for the dependent variables.
All three dimensions of the social presences in online marketplace
are found to contribute positively and significantly to Trust in
Sellers, and respectively they are: Social Presence of Web (b ¼ 0.21,
P < 0.01); Social Presence of Interaction (b ¼ 0.27, P < 0.01) and
Social Presence of Others (b ¼ 0.09, P < 0.01). Hence, hypotheses
H1e3 are supported. Collectively, these three social presence con-
structs account for almost 48 percent of the variance explained in
Trust in Sellers. As hypothesized, Purchase Intention is found to be
significantly influenced by Trust in Sellers (b ¼ 0.38, P < 0.01),
supporting H4. Trust in Sellers by itself can account for about 35
Integrity
R2 = .81
Web
.21**
.09**
.27**
Comment
Fig. 2. PLS results of structural model.
percent of the variance explained in Purchase Intention. As ex-
pected, all the controlled variables, except Trust in Platform
(b ¼ 0.10, P < 0.10), have significant impacts on their assigned
dependent variables. The results show that even when even
allowing for the effects of the control variables, social presence
constructs still significantly contribute to buyer trusting beliefs
towards online sellers and Trust in Seller is still a strong predicator
for buyer purchase intention.
6. Discussion
6.1. Key findings and contributions
This study has several key findings. First, the results confirm
the significant positive impact of trusting beliefs on purchase
intention in the context of online SC marketplace even allowing
the effects of controlling variables. A substantial degree of trusting
beliefs in sellers' traits of integrity, benevolence and competence
is needed by online buyers before making purchase decisions.
Thus, this study upholds the claim that trust is important in e-
commerce (Fang et al., 2014; McKnight et al., 2002; Pavlou &
Gefen, 2004) and extends it to the context of social commerce.
Second, the results support our hypothesis of trusting beliefs as a
second-order construct composing of integrity, benevolence and
competence, providing a more parsimonious conceptualization of
trusting beliefs in the context of both e-commerce and social
commerce. Although trusting belies has been suggested a multi-
dimensional construct (McKnight et al., 2002), it was often
treated as a set of separate variables, increasing model complexity
or making results suffer from high multicollinearity because of
high correlations among the dimensions of trust. Third, drawing
upon the perspective of social presence theory, this study sheds
light on the nature of social atmosphere of the social commerce
marketplace by proposing and testing a set of three antecedents of
trusting beliefs: SP of web, perception of others, and SP of inter-
action with sellers. All the three proposed social presence con-
structs are found to be strong predicators of trust in seller, jointly
accounting for a substantial degree of the variance in trust in
seller. The results, thereby, suggest the vital role of social atmo-
sphere in building buyer trusting beliefs in sellers in an online SC
marketplaces. Finally, the entire structural model with the
controlled variables helps delineate the full picture in which both
social and structural factors shape buyer beliefs and purchase
behaviors in a SC marketplace.
The primary contribution of this study is to introduce a new
set of social antecedent factors of trusting beliefs into a model
Benevolence Competence ** Significant level .01
R2 = .75 R2 = .75
* Significant level .05
.90 .87 .87 Variance explained in bold
Trust In Sellers Purchase Intention
R2 = .55 .38**
R2 = .47
.19
** ** .10 .18
** **
.16 .30
Trust In Perceived Price
Trust Disposition
Marketplace Fairness
 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
that explains the buyer purchase behavior in the online SC
marketplaces. By identifying the underlying social sources of e-
trust in addition to the institutional and individual sources in
literature (Gefen & Pavlou, 2012; McKnight et al., 2002), this
study provide a more full understanding on online purchase
behaviors in SC marketplaces. Prior research concentrates more
on the impacts of institutional context and technological factors
for trust building in e-commerce (e.g., Fang et al., 2014),
neglecting the influences of the social context. However, social
context is an important source of trust (Luhmann, 1979). Thus,
this study extends current trust research by introducing a new
set of social factors relying social presence theory. Second,
drawing upon the social presence theory, this study theorizes the
nature of social aspect of shopping by surfacing three SPT-based
constructs: SP of web, perception of others and SP of interaction
with online sellers. While social presence was often treated as
one-dimensional construct that represents the static character-
istic of web interface (Shen & Khalifa, 2009); this study has
proposed and validated it as a multi-dimensional concept in the
SC context. Third, via the social presence constructs, we disclose
how the use of social applications and functions in e-commerce
websites helps build the trustworthy online environment and
shape buyer perceptions and behaviors. Fourth, this study con-
tributes to trust literature by separating the individual-level trust
(trust in seller) with the institution-based trust (e.g., trust in
marketplace, structural assurance). It reflects the nature of re-
lationships in online marketplace (Lu et al., 2015): buyers need to
trust both the marketplace and sellers before making purchase
decision. Thus, two types of relationship exist in an online
marketplace: the dyadic buy-seller relationship reflected by the
construct of trust in seller and the buyer-institution relationship
reflected by construct of trust in marketplace. Finally, by looking
into buyer behaviors in online SC marketplaces, we introduce a
new phenomenon e social commerce e that deserves more
attention in future study. Social influences in e-commerce have
been overlooked or simplified in prior literature, however, the
mushrooming of SC call more attention to the social perspective
of online shopping.
6.2. Implications for research
Online trust is viewed as a central concept of e-commerce in
literature (Keen et al., 1999) because of its substantial roles in
mitigating negative perceptions (uncertainty and risks) and in
enabling online transactions. Most e-commerce studies focused on
a single website and viewed trust as a dyadic (one-to-one) rela-
tionship between a buyer and a specific vendor. Since the domi-
nance of online marketplace, this study examines trust in online
marketplace and extends it to the SC context. From a relationship
perspective, two types of relationships exist in online market-
places: the online buyereseller relationship (trust in seller) and the
buyer-marketplace relationship (trust in marketplace). Though
trust in marketplace is controlled for this study, the results support
its significant positive effects on purchase intention. Thus, the
buyer-marketplace relationship also helps encourage online
transactions (Lu et al., 2015). This study contributes to e-commerce
literature in delineating the relationships in online marketplaces. It
also suggests that both types of relationships deserve special
attention in future studies.
Since trust (as a set of beliefs) is a key mediating variable in
online relationship models (Morgan & Hunt, 1994), a lot effort has
been put into finding the underlying sources of online trust in e-
commerce literature. Trust are found to root in institutional
mechanisms (McKnight et al., 2002; Pavlou & Gefen, 2004), in-
dividual characteristics such as trust disposition and familiarity
233
(Gefen & Straub, 2004), and website design features (Kim, Jin, &
Swinney, 2009; Ou & Sia, 2009). There have been very few
studies (e.g., Liang & Turban, 2011) that tried to identify ante-
cedents of trust from the social perspective. However, the fast
development of social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of
shopping to e-commerce, making it possible for online buyers to
rely on social cues in assisting their purchase decisions. This study
confirms the positive impacts of social factors on trust (beliefs) by
theorizing the nature of social aspect in online marketplaces
based on the SPT perspective. In doing so, this study not only
suggests that SPT is a relevant theoretical perspective, but also
indicates that the social aspect of e-commerce deserve further
exploration with a variety of theoretical lenses such as social
capital theory.
To overcome the limitations of viewing as a one-dimensional
construct (Shen & Khalifa, 2009) and to better conceptualize the
nature of social aspect of e-commerce, this study proposes and
validates social presence as a multi-dimensional construct
composing a set of three variables. Jointly they account for a sub-
stantial degree of variance explained in trusting beliefs. A multi-
dimensional conceptualization of social presence offers at least
two strengths. First, it can show which dimensions of SP have
significant influences on online behaviors, providing a deep un-
derstanding on how the social factors impact user perceptions,
beliefs and behaviors. Second, it helps us uncover antecedent fac-
tors for each dimension of SP. In online context, perceptions of SP
are grounded in the use of social artifacts. A multi-dimensional
conceptualization of SP can disclose how various social artifacts
affect different SP dimensions (Shen & Khalifa, 2009). Online buyer
communities have been found to increase engagement in e-com-
merce adoption (Liang & Turban, 2011; Lu et al., 2010). Therefore,
we contribute a set of three SPT-based variables as social ante-
cedent factors of trust that can be explored in future e-commerce
and online community research.
As for the formative SP construct e social presence of others,
the indicator of SPO1, reflecting the information about other
buyers who might feel interest with the product, seems a weak
item (b ¼ 0.18, P > 0.10). This suggests that in comparison with the
information about who might want to buy, the social cues
regarding to others who have actually bought and provided
comments are more persuasive for an online buyer to trust a
specific seller. Thus, the findings of this study is consistent with
the study of Chen et al. (2011), in which the positive observational
learning information was found to have a significant impact on
buyers' purchase actions. Since this is the first endeavor to
conceptualize social presence of others in terms of social com-
merce context, our specification of this construct might be not
comprehensive (Diamantopoulos, 2011), we encourage future
studies to continue to explore this construct.
It should be noticed that the above findings are based on the
data collected from China, which is significant different from
Western culture. Although previous research revealed that there
were no significant differences for the effects of social presence on
trust between Chinese and Western culture (Hassanein et al.,
2009), further examination of our model in the context of West-
ern culture might been necessary before the generalization the
research results.
Finally, from a descriptive perspective, this study describes the
process by which a set of social factors facilitate online exchange
relationships through the key mediating role of trusting beliefs
after controlling the effects of a few key variables. This study
suggests that in the context of social commerce buyer trusting
beliefs depend on both structural sources and social sources.
Research models that examine online buyer behaviors in social
commerce without considering either one of their effects may
234 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237
result in problems of “errors of exclusion” (Benbasat & Zmud,
2003).
6.3. Implications for practice
Our research also has several practical implications. First,
although embedding social technologies into e-commerce sites has
been widely adopted by practitioners, its effectiveness is rarely
examined and confirmed in literature. This study shows that the
perceived social presences conveyed by the use of social technol-
ogies can increase buyer trusting beliefs towards sellers, which is a
necessary precursor of online purchase. Thus, to some extent, the
combination of social technologies with e-commerce applications
is effective, though the effectiveness of some social applications
need to be further examined. This encourages the practitioners to
continue to include social applications into their site but with a
more careful examination on their effectiveness.
Second, our results indicate that the social presence conveyed
by the web content (text, pictures, videos, etc.) and the social
presence conveyed by interaction with sellers can significantly
increase buyer trusting beliefs. The results of this study, combined
with previous research (Hassanein et al., 2009), suggest that on-
line sellers might wish to invest in creating and maintaining these
two effective social presence channels with potential buyers.
Furthermore, this study indicates that perception of other buyers
also has a positive impact on buyers' trusting beliefs towards a
specific online seller. But not all information revealed about other
buyers contribute significantly. Only information regarding with
others who have actually bought and who have provided posi-
tively information is useful in shaping online buyers' trusting
beliefs. This indicates that online platform managers should
closely monitor the effects of the information revealed about
other online buyers.
Finally, our results uphold the claims that trust is critical for the
success of electronic commerce in literature (Lu et al., 2010) and
extends it to the SC context. Our findings suggest that both social
factors and structural factors are necessary for trust building in
online SC marketplaces. This implies that building social environ-
ment based on social technologies is as important as building
institutional environment with the IT-enabled mechanisms for
online marketplace providers. Since most e-commerce websites
have completed the building of reliable institutional environment,
it is more urgent and important for e-commerce companies and
marketplaces providers to establish a more social environment for
the next step.
6.4. Limitations and suggestions for future research
This paper has a number of limitations. First, MBA and under-
graduate students sample was used in this study. Although
nonresponse sample bias was assessed and verified, the sample
may not represent actual online buyers of online marketplace.
Second, a single website (Taobao) data was used for this study. In
spite of that Taobao is the largest SC marketplace in China,
including more sites for data collection will increase the external
validity of the results. Additional research can examine the model
by using actual online buyer data with the inclusion of more sites.
Third, the model was tested only with the data collected from
Chinese culture. The results might not be generalized to other
cultural context. Future study is also needed for testing the model
in different cultures. Fourth, the common method bias was
assessed and the results showed that common method variance
was not a major concern statistically, however, common method
bias cannot be absolutely ruled out. Finally, we have controlled the
effects of some important variables on trust; however, this paper
cannot address all these possible antecedents of trust, such as,
reputation, branding, and previous purchase experiences. Addi-
tional research is also needed to sort out the effects of these
variables.
In addition to the aforementioned future research suggestions,
this paper suggests several more research directions as follows.
First, we have proposed and tested social presence as a multi-
dimensional construct in this study. Future research can further
examine our conceptualization in different cultural context or by
proposing new dimensions of social presence. Second, social
presences are conveyed by the use of social applications and
technologies. Then future research can study how various social
artifacts influence different types of social presence. Third, online
buyer community has been found to positively affect e-commerce
adoption (Lu et al., 2010). Social presence theory is also a suitable
perspective for online community research (Shen & Khalifa,
2009). Thus, future research can explore the user behaviors in
online buyer communities by using the SPT perspective. Fourth,
the focus of this study is to examine the effects of different types
of social presence on trusting beliefs. We use trust in marketplace
(intentions) as the surrogate for institutional mechanism and
other factors associated with marketplace. A more complete
model that includes both social factors and structural factors will
be more interesting for future research. Finally, we have shown
that the use of social technologies is effective for online trusting
building via a set of variables based on SPT. Future research can
theorize the nature of social aspect by employing social theoret-
ical perspectives.
7. Conclusion
Drawing upon the social presence theory, this paper looks into
the nature of social aspect in online social commerce marketplaces
by proposing a set of three social presence variables, SP of the web,
perception of others and SP of interaction, respectively. A research
model that describes buyer purchase behaviors in online social
marketplaces is proposed by including the three social presence
variables as social antecedents of trusting beliefs. In sum, this study
sheds new light on both social commerce research and social
presence theory as follows. First, it re-conceptualizes and validates
the concept of social presence as a multi-dimensional construct in
social commerce, overcoming the limitations of one-dimensional
conceptualization in previous e-commerce research. Next, it con-
tributes a new set of social presence variables that can be explored
in future research. Then this paper discloses the positive effects of
social presence variables on trusting beliefs, suggesting an effective
way for trust building in online social commerce marketplaces, that
is, the combination of IT-enabled structural factors and the social
factors based on the use of social technologies. Finally, we introduce
a new perspective of e-commerce that needs special attention for
future investigations, that is, a new phenomenon of social
commerce.
Fund sources
This work is supported by National Key Technology R&D Pro-
gram of the Ministry of Science and Technology (Grant No.
2013BAH54F03), the Ministry of education of Humanities and So-
cial Science project (Grant No. 13YJC630105), the Doctoral Fund of
Ministry of Education of China (Grant No. 20120133120005), the
Soft Science Fund of Shandong (Grant No. 2014RKE28002) and
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities
(13CX04039B).
 B. Lu et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 56 (2016) 225e237 235

Appendix A. Instrument and measurement properties

Mean Std dev Loading

Principle variables
Social presence of web (Gefen & Straub, 2004)
SPW1 There is a sense of human contact in the web of the seller. 4.38 1.13 0.87
SPW2 There is a sense of personalness in the web of the seller. 4.25 1.12 0.8
SPW3 There is a sense of sociability in the web of the seller. 4.42 4.12 0.90
*
SPW4 There is a sense of human warmth in the web of the seller.
SPW5 There is a sense of human sensitivity in the web of the seller. 4.14 1.17 0.87
Social presence of others (composite latent construct)
SPO1 There are many others buyers feel interested with the product. 4.87 1.24 0.18
SPO2 There are many others buyers sharing information regarding with the product 4.59 1.12 0.64
SPO3 There are many others who have bought the product. 5.14 1.24 0.39
Social presence of interaction (Caspi & Blau 2008; Hess et al., 2009)
SPI1 I can make sense of the attitude of sellers by interacting with them via Aliwangwang. 4.71 1.10 0.81
SPI2 I can imagine how they may look like by interacting with them via Aliwangwang. 5.02 1.10 0.77
SPI3 There is a sense of human touch to communicate with sellers via Aliwangwang. 4.49 1.06 0.87
SPI4 Communication via Aliwangwang was warm. 4.35 1.09 0.85

Trusting beliefs (Gefen & Straub, 2004; McKnight et al., 2002)

Benevolence
BEN1 I believe that the seller would act in my best interest. 4.05 1.15 0.81
BEN2 If I required help, the seller would do his/her best to help me. 4.51 1.12 0.84
BEN3 The seller is interested in my well-being. 4.04 1.19 0.86
BEN4 I expect that the seller's intentions are benevolent 4.59 1.03 0.82
Integrity
IN1 Promises made by the vendor are likely to be reliable. 4.53 1.02 0.85
IN2 I do not doubt the honesty of the vendor. 4.58 1.07 0.86
IN3 The vendor is sincere and genuine. 4.60 0.97 0.89
IN4 I expect that the vendor will keep promises he/she make. 4.80 0.95 0.86
Competence
COM1 The vendor is competent and effective. 4.71 0.90 0.81
COM2 The vendor performs his/her role very well. 4.90 0.91 0.85
COM3 The vendor knows about the product. 5.11 1.04 0.79
COM4 The vendor knows how to provide excellent service. 4.82 1.00 0.82

Purchase intention (Gefen & Straub, 2004)

PI1 I am very likely to buy the product from seller. 4.95 1.14 0.89
PI2 I would consider buying the product from the seller in the future. 4.91 1.07 0.91
PI3 I intend to buy the product from the seller. 4.81 1.15 0.90

Control variables
Comment (Pavlou & Dimoka, 2006)
C1 The average rating of the vendor is high. 5.08 1.12 0.85
C2 The comments on the product are positive. 5.05 1.05 0.92
C3 The comments on the service are positive. 5.10 0.97 0.91
C4 Overall, the comments on the vendor are positive. 5.21 0.99 0.90
Trust disposition (Gefen & Straub, 2004)
TD1 I generally trust other people 4.49 1.22 0.72
TD2* I tend to count upon other people
TD3 I generally have faith in humanity 4.52 1.10 0.87
TD4 I feel that people are generally well meaning 4.79 1.03 0.87
TD5 I feel that people are generally trustworthy 4.52 1.09 0.87
TD6 I feel that people are generally reliable 4.42 1.12 0.85
Trust in marketplaces (Pavlou & Gefen, 2004)
TIM1 As the online marketplace, Taobao can be trusted at all times. 4.79 0.95 0.88
TIM2 As the online marketplace Taobao can be counted on to do what is right. 4.53 0.98 0.88
TIM3 As the online marketplace, Taobao has high integrity. 4.43 1.00 0.86
TIM4 Taobao is a competent and knowledgeable online transaction platform. 4.77 0.97 0.86
Perceived price fairness
PPF1 It is worth buying the product from this vendor with this price. 4.80 1.24 0.90
PPF2 The price of the product is competitive. 4.75 1.21 0.86
PPF3 My choice of this product with this price will be a wise one. 4.69 1.20 0.91
PPF4 I am satisfied with the price. 4.75 1.27 0.90
*
Item dropped from final analysis. All scales anchored by: 1-strongly disagree, 7-strongly agree.

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