The Determinants of e-WOM for Infomediaries in Social Commerce

The explosive growth of social commerce engenders a new business model, that is, infomediary. In a social commerce environment, infomediary works as a personal agent who provides information about various web merchants to help consumers select appropriate merchants for their needs. The purpose of this study is to identify the factors influencing consumer attitudes towards infomediaries in social commerce and examine the relationship between intention to provide word of mouth and consumer attitudes. In total, 170 responses were collected from social commerce infomediary users. The results show that competence and integrity significantly influence user attitudes as trust dimensions. Infomediary reputation and two functional factors (information variety and navigation functionality) turn out to be significant antecedents for user attitudes toward infomediary in social commerce. User attitudes in turn significantly influence the intention to provide word of mouth. Future research and practical implications are also discussed.