Social Commerce and Consumer Motivations/Involvement - An UK fashion industry - Literature review Example

? Social Commerce and Consumer Motivations/Involvement - An UK fashion industry perspective Social commerce and consumer motivations or involvements are most important concepts in recent marketing world. These two concepts are interlinked and they are enormously affecting the buying and selling behaviors of consumers and producers respectively. Growing social media and networking sites have a huge impact on social commerce. On the other hand consumer motivation or involvement is largely explained by different involvement theories. The emergence of prosumer in recent times is affecting many industries and brands. This paper focuses on the conceptual explanations of social commerce and consumer motivation, their relations and their effects on UK fashion industry. Social commerce: Social commerce and consumer motivation/ involvement comprise brand new marketing strategies. These new evolving market strategies are widely used by producers of all kinds of brands and products. Social commerce is the new emerging field of commerce and marketing. It is concerned with connecting buyers and sellers through social media such as online media. Purchase and sale of different products and services are performed online. Social media and network is used for social interactions and for making useful contributions to users (Sau-ling LAI, 2010, pp.39-40). Social commerce is an element of electronic commerce or e-commerce (Schneider, 2011, p.15). The concept is widely utilized for social commerce sites, such as Facebook, Groupon, LivingSocial, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. and in many other sites. Social commerce is the most rapidly adopted element of marketing and e-commerce strategy (Wiener, 2009, p.2). Social commerce has everlasting reliance on oral or written promotion as well as advertising of products and brands which is popularly known as word of mouth marketing. David Beisel and Steve Rubel have developed the concept of social commerce. Such a development was directed towards facilitating buyers and sellers across the globe to get relevant information. Advertising facilities are concerned with delivering such relevant information about availability of variety of products and also about their nature and prices. Social commerce consists of items such as social advertisements, social shopping, ratings and reviews of products and services, recommendations and referrals from direct or indirect users of products or services etc. Consumers are able to share each other’s expertise, knowledge, and understanding about products and services with introduction of such a concept. This also helps retailers to understand the basic needs and wants of consumers and hence adopt appropriate and successful social commerce strategy (Wiener, 2009, p.2). Worldwide fashion industries have made significant utilization of social commerce which already has wide usage in many areas of marketing (Wiener, 2009, p.2). UK fashion industry and Social commerce: Fashion brands were the first to explore the possible gains from social commerce. Rapid changes in consumers’ motivations have accelerated this rate of exploration (Wiener, 2009, p.1). There are various online branding strategies which are extensively used by fashion retailers in UK. They also use strategies like building brand relationships, communicating brand identity etc. to use benefits of social commerce and e-commerce (Rowley, 2009, p.348). In the UK, online retailing of fashion did not get positive responses in the beginning. Major reason for this was the people wanted to touch and try-on cloths, especially women. But gradually it gathered popularity. Amounts of cloths and shows purchased via Internet started to rise steadily. Online shopping sites, such as LandsEnd.com, GreatUniversal.com, and Littlewoodsdirect.com started to develop and implement various models regarding the selling strategies of products online. They have used multi-channel strategies and built different online channels to mark their presence (Rowley, 2009, p.348). The rise of generation C and use of different new marketing strategies like word-of-mouth have helped the UK fashion industry to grow at rapid pace. In this context the prosumers are highly involved in getting connected with each other via social networks like Facebook, MySpace etc. and in making transactions of products and services (Friedrich, n.d., p.2; Gerhardt, 2008, p.1). There was a close relationship between brand retailing and online branding strategies in the UK fashion industry. There were extensive uses of brand-related social media in this industry. In every segments of this media, such as consuming, contributing, and creating, there were wide uses of these strategies (Lundkvist and Yakhlef, 2004, pp.250-251). Watching brand-related video and pictures and listening to audios, following trends on online brand community forums, reading comments on brand features on social sites, reading and writing product reviews and rating products according to their services, downloading branded widgets, sending branded virtual gifts/cards, joining a social network site for a different or specific brand profiles, engaging in conversations regarding the brand on online forums or social sites, commenting on brand-related video, audio, pictures, publishing brand-related weblogs, uploading video, audio, images and writing articles on brand and services – these were the strategies that were chosen at that time to acquire the benefits from social media and social commerce, or mainly from e-commerce. All these factors have contributed a lot in developing consumers’ motivations and involvements toward the success of this industry in the UK (Muntinga, Moorman and Smit, 2011, p.16). Fashion industries in UK have used the effective combinations of marketing strategies and latest technologies to grab attention from Generation C. They have known to attract prosumers through such online marketing which has been a slow but steady process. ASOS.com is the largest fashion and beauty store of the UK that is available only online. It helps men and women of different ages to purchase all kinds of products they want. This social commerce site uses the consumers’ motivations and TAM to attract consumers to purchase their products. Consumers who are purchasing products from ASOS.com are highly fashionable consumers and possess high-involvement towards purchasing fashion products (Muntinga, Moorman and Smit, 2011, p.20). Consumer motivation or involvement: The theory of consumer motivation or consumer involvement deals with motivational perspectives of the consumer which consists of choosing one product over the other(s), choice of one particular shop over other(s), and finally willingness of the consumer to buy a product. This theoretical concept is entirely based upon behavioral aspects of human beings. Consumer motivation or involvement depends on the notions of consumers’ wants and demands. Thus several factors and concepts like needs, wants and demands are related to this theory of consumer motivation. These concepts are used with similar meaning (Consumer Motivation and Involvement, n.d., pp.13-14). These are related to satisfying the need of consumer through consumption of the product or service. In this context it is called wants. But this concept of satisfying the needs differ with respect to individuals. Needs and wants are conceptually distinct. Two different persons with same needs at a given point of time may have different resources or techniques to satisfy those needs, that is, their wants might differ. Such a conceptual difference is very important for the marketers catering to different needs for different kinds of individuals (Consumer Motivation and Involvement, n.d., pp.13-14). There are different types of needs. There are biogenic needs, such as food, water, air, shelter. There are also psychogenic needs which help people to become a member of their respective culture. These include need for power, status, affiliation etc. There are also some utilitarian or hedonic needs which include the satisfaction of the needs of the consumer regarding the quality, durability of the product and also about the needs for excitement, self-confidence, fantasy etc. Researchers have argued that the utilitarian goods are the necessary goods which are purchased by the consumers being ‘motivated by the functional product aspects’. These goods provide utilitarian benefits, which involve instrumental purchases of different products. On the contrary, hedonic consumption is related to the purchase of luxury goods, which provide consumers hedonic pleasure. Utilitarian goods include personal computers, microwaves, minivans etc. Hedonic benefits can be obtained from consuming designer clothes, sports cars, luxury watches etc. (Khan et al., 2004, p.4). A careful understanding of needs is very important for the marketer to supply the desired product to the concerned consumer. Old consumer motivations and behaviors have undergone huge changes in the face of new technologies and marketing strategies. Consumers place more reliance on self usage and self experience with the products rather than getting completely influenced by advertisements and marketing strategies. Availability of social sites and networks has motivated consumers to see reviews and ratings on products and brands which have resulted for changes in the old motivations (Consumer Motivation and Involvement, n.d., pp.13-14). Specifically the era of internet and social network has given birth to Generation C which performs most of the tasks on computers. This has been hugely responsible for changes in old motivations of consumers. The theory of consumer involvement or motivation is very important for planning marketing strategies. One important type of consumer involvement is embedded in the concept of purchase involvement of the consumers. The concept is associated with consumers’ levels of interests regarding the decision to purchase a product or service. This helps marketers to gather information about the purchasing interests of the consumers (Consumer Motivation and Involvement, n.d., p.21). Online Consumer Behavior: Consumer Profile Consumer motivation with the help of social media for the purpose of promotions, advertisements and purchase of the products are very much relevant in today’s world. Companies use the social media sites to advertise about their respective products and services. The popular social networking sites like Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Twitter etc have a large number of people accessing them everyday. Therefore, firms utilize these internet sites to convey information about their products to a wide range of the population. The media sites are popular among people belonging to different age groups. Media research has revealed that people of all ages are actively involved in social networking activity. This proves to be an additional advantage for the companies. Instead of appealing to a specific age group, their product promotions are spread among young and old consumers alike. (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2009, p.70). There can be different economic aspects regarding the participation of consumers in social networking sites. Internet facilities are now available at an affordable price. Therefore, majority of the population, with sufficient monetary resources have access to these social media sites. Thus, the companies remain assured that their product promotions reach out to the appropriate strata of consumers in the society. People accessing the various media sites are expected to have sufficient purchasing power to buy the products and services advertised through these sites. Consumers have been found to join brand communities on Facebook and Twitter to acquire discounts on the product purchase. They often order the product or service through the site in order to save the time in going and purchasing them physically. Sometimes the companies organize raffles and competition with regard to their respective products on these media sites to attract people online. These events have been found to increase online consumer participation. These are the other economic benefits accruing to the consumers due to their part taking in online brand advertisements. Various researches in this regard have shown that different brands of products and services are joining Facebook brand communities or Twitter brand forums in order to gather attention of the users worldwide and to earn more profit. This is the area where social media is playing its crucial role in making a significant impact on the users and brands’ purchases (Berkman, Lindquist and Sirgy, 1997, pp.19-20). A research shows that joining Facebook communities seeks the largest amount of attention from users worldwide. The major reason for this finding is that joining Facebook communities gives those consumers enough commitment to the brand (Consumer Motivations to Join a Facebook Brand Community, n.d., p.5). These communities also motivate consumers for buying the product so that they carry high-involvements for that brand. Online consumer behavior has gained much importance in recent times. In 1999, almost $3 billion was spent on Internet advertising. In 2003, amount of such investments increased to $15 billion (Joines, Scherer and Scheufele, 2003, p.90). Using Internet as the mean of advertising e-companies gather interactivity with the consumers, maintains consumer intimacy through interpersonal communication, and finally sells the product or service to the consumer (Joines, Scherer and Dietram A. Scheufele, 2003, pp.91-91). In most of the cases consumers’ motivations are inspired by external sources. For instance, sometimes family members or friends who have consumed the product or brand speak about their experience of such consumption. That actually helps the consumer to understand the nature and benefits of the product or brand. Friends and family influence play a key role in the consumer’s ultimate decision of purchasing the product. All these aspects have widely been utilized by the UK fashion industries for marketing different products and brands. Facebook brand communities and other Internet brand communities (like Twitter or Google+) have been extensively used to divert attention towards fashion products. This is to gain more and more popularity and advancements in the sales and marketing of those products (Consumer Motivations to Join a Facebook Brand Community, n.d., p.6). Online consumer behavior theories are summerised into three main concepts related to social commerce. These three concepts are Intention (which deals with the intension of the consumer for online purchase of goods and services), Adoption (which refers to online purchase of goods and services) and Continuance (which deals with the repurchase of goods and services by consumers). The concept of intention refers to the motivation of the consumer in favour of the purchase of the good or service. If the consumer finds that after purchasing and consuming the good he can be benefitted in terms of raising the level of utility, then he will be highly intended to purchase the product. This high intention leads to the actual purchase of the product and also if the consumer gets satisfied after using the product, then he will be tempted to repurchase the product as well (Cheung et al., 2003, p.199). There are various factors which affect consumer behaviors. In case of online consumers’ behaviour the major factors are online shopping aid. This factor explains the behaviour of the consumer in case of online shopping. Another important factor is the economic situation of consumers. In case of online purchases of products consumers are required to have access to Internet facilities and they are required to have bank accounts through which monetary transactions at the time of purchase of the product will take place. In this regard the UK consumers have been benefitted to great extent due to high availability of Internet facilities all over the country. Consumers are also required to spend enough time in identifying their desired products and to purchase selected products. There are also cultural factors, like cultural preferences of the society regarding different products like dresses, shoes, affect consumer behaviour. There are also other factors like attitude of the consumer towards the purchase of the product (Cheung et al., 2003, pp.199-200). There are various economic and demographic factors affecting consumer behaviour. People of developed countries like UK, USA have monetary power and capacity to purchase different online products and they are also the largest users of Internet and various social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Again the demographic factors help producers and marketers to identify the region of product purchasers and also to influence the buying behaviours of those consumers. For example, people living in the European and American countries are the biggest purchasers of wines because they live in cold areas of the world and wines are required to maintaining body-warmth (Cheung et al., 2003, p.205). Technology adoption or diffusion process: AIDA model: AIDA is nothing but the acronym used in marketing. It involves a list of processes that are initiated when someone wants to sell a product or service. From the late 1950s this concept has become popular among people as a professional discipline. This is often called the “Hierarchy of Effects”. It describes a process in which people are motivated to act on external incentives, including the processes which help to make a selling process more successful. A-I-D-A stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action. The process is basically initiated in proper sequence to buy products or services and to sell products and services. First of all, a product or service tries to get the Attention of the buyer. Then the buyer gets Interested to gather more information about the product, if the product or service is relevant to that buyer. Then if the product or service satisfies all the needs and aspirations of the buyer, mainly if the product or service is unique and different from other related products and services, then the person develops a Desire for the product or service. If the person then gets motivated to get the product or service, then he takes appropriate Action to buy it. This model is widely used to motivate people for purchasing a product or service (A I D A (w h y p e o p l e b u y), 2002, pp.1-2). In case of using the AIDA model, social commerce or e-commerce processes are used to get the attention for the product or the service. Social networking sites and online sites are used extensively to promote different goods and services. This is the first step toward the purchase of the product. In case of the UK fashion industry, this process has widely been used. This has been the major contributing factor for the success of the UK fashion industry (A I D A (w h y p e o p l e b u y), 2002, pp.1-2). Thus it can be said that UK fashion industry is effectively reaping the advantages of the phenomenon of social networking. Internet Use and Motivation Social media researchers have revealed that people all over the world are using the Internet for consumer purposes. An increasing number of consumers are ordering their desired products and services online. People are also spending more time on the Internet in searching for product information. A study by CyberAtlas in 2000 reported that from among the total number of people who have access to the Internet, 58 per cent of them spend their time in browsing for information on different products and services. Another research by E-Marketer (2000) discovered that 23.7 per cent of the total time spent by the users on the Internet, are usually directed towards product surfing. (Joines, Sherer, et al, 2003, p.94) Again, there are several benefits accruing to such online product consumers. Firstly, consumers get access to a wide variety of information on the Internet about different products and services. They can select the products of their choice and give a corresponding search, which would automatically generate all information about the product. Earlier people used product catalogs to know about the various products available in the market. However, the product catalog need to be acquired either physically from a shop or be delivered through post. Instead, the information available on the Internet and social media sites are much easier to access. The consumers just need to have a working internet connection at their disposal. The Internet also provides consumers with the facility of ordering the products through their medium. Consumers can order for their preferred products and services online. They can pay for the products directly through the Internet by using their respective credit cards. After they receive the order and the subsequent payment for the product, companies arrange to have the requisite order delivered to the address of the customers. By shopping online, customers save their time of going and purchasing products physically from supermarkets or shops. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): TAM is a theory of information system that deals with models regarding the acceptance and use of a technology by the users. These models deal with the fact that when a user is presented with a particular technology, he faces questions regarding how and when to use that technology. These questions are summarised as factors such as “perceived usefulness” and “perceived ease-of-use” (Chuttur, 2005, pp.1-5). The first factor deals with the degree of the person’s belief that he will be benefitted after using that technology. And the second factor deals with the degree of person’s belief that by using the concerned technology his effort levels will lower down. These two factors along with the third important factor called “attitude toward using the product or system” can explain the user’s motivation. According to the model, external incentives containing features and capabilities of a particular system (or product) can motivate the user to use that system (or product) and hence, it will ultimately lead to the actual use of the system (or product) (Chuttur, 2005, pp.1-5). In the UK fashion industry this model has been used to motivate people to buy fashion products and in this respect the processes of e-commerce have been used quite extensively (Chuttur, 2005, pp.1-5). The generation C shows remarkable changes in the rates of accepting new technologies. This generation is highly dependent on technologies and they have been using computers, mobile phones and other gadgets more than any other generation. Hence, they are more inclined towards social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. (Friedrich, R., et al, n.d., p.2). Everett Rogers and Diffusion of innovations: Diffusion of innovation is a conceptual theory that explains the processes, reasons, and the speed of spreading ideas from one part(s) of a society to other part(s) of that society. This concept was popularised by Everett Rogers in 1962. This theory deals with the processes by which innovations are communicated over time from one channel to the other. The main elements of diffusion are “innovation”, “communication channels”, “time”, and “social system” (Vishwanath and Barnett, 2011, p.10). All these systems are used to motivate the users and in this regard social networking sites are used mainly to spread relevant information from one part of the society to the other part. This has also been used by the fashion industry in UK to communicate and spread information across different parts of the society through social commerce and hence the industry got benefitted a lot (Rogers, 2003, pp.351-353). Such innovations have largely helped UK fashion industry to seek attention from prosumers who have been emerging in large numbers with advent of advanced technologies. Consumer Attitudes Social commerce, consumer motivation, Technology diffusion process: There is a continuous link between social commerce, consumer motivation and technology diffusion process. On one hand, a positive consumer motivation or involvement towards the purchase of a product or service helps to increase the need for using social commerce as a marketing strategy. On the other hand, rapid and extensive use of social commerce can help the consumer to develop his motivation toward purchasing the product or service under consideration. If a person has high and positive purchasing involvement for a product, then it is most likely that the person will purchase the product (Marsden, n.d., p.2-5). Again there is a link between technology diffusion process, as explained by AIDA model, TAM and Diffusion of Innovations. In modern world the high rates of accepting new technologies like computers, iPhones etc., by the people have made it easier for producers to make use of those gadgets for seeking the attention of consumers from all over the world. It also gives them enough chance to gain consumers’ interests for their products and brands, and hence influences the desires and actions of those consumers. Greater availability of modern technologies has made it possible to diffuse ideas and innovations regarding new brands and products from one part of the society to other parts at faster rates. The rise of the generation C again made it easier for producers to promote their products for attracting young generations. For example, due to recent developments in technologies and communication, it becomes easier for the marketers to use online sites and social networks for increasing promotions and sells for their products and services. This is because these social networks and sites have helped consumers to learn more about diversified products and to gain momentum for purchasing those products. These social networks give ample scope to the consumers to know more about products or services write reviews and suggestions and express views and opinions as feedback. Marketers can perform advocacy for their products and services by giving sufficient information about them .These can influence purchasing motivations of a person at a large scale. An effective advertising of a product or service may motivate a consumer to put larger attention on that product or service and finally buy it. Hence, it can easily be said that social commerce, technology acceptance and consumer motivation are closely related for any product or service. But the significant impact of these aspects is visible in case of the fashion industries in UK (Muntinga, Moorman and Smit, 2011, pp.13-14). The fashion industries of UK have significantly utilized the technologies and advocated the consumers to purchase them through social networking sites. In this respect they have also attempted to grab attention of Generation C for their products. User typologies, Contribution, Level of Involvement, Involvement Theories: Attitude of the consumer is an important aspect in case of online purchases of products. Trust of a consumer for a specific online product not only helps that particular consumer to purchase or repurchase the product, but also helps other consumers who are connected with that consumer through Facebook or other social commercial sites to purchase the product. This aspect is sometimes referred to as social influence in favour of the social commerce. For consumer motivational theory COBRA motivation is most important. COBRA typology was developed with the motive of facilitating motivational theory. There are various user typologies that are used in the consumer motivation theories. Mathwick developed four relevant user types on this concept. These are lurkers, socialisers, personal connectors and transactional community members. COBRA typology developed prior to COBRA motivations deals with three concepts-“consuming”, “contributing” and “creating”. The concept of contribution refers to the user-to-content and user-to-user interactions about the features and qualities of the brand. The level of involvement depends upon the level of motivation of the user about the brand. In this regard this relates to the power of the brand to get communicated with users. Significant communication can lead to significant level of involvement of the user. There are two relevant theories available of consumer involvement. These are high-involvement theories and low-involvement theories (Laaksonen, 1994, p.21). These theories depend on the degree at which the consumer believes the product or brand is relevant to him. High-involvement refers to those products or services that are highly important to the user, such as automobiles or dandruff shampoos. These types of products arise a temptation within the consumer for purchase. Hence he/she tries to acquire maximum information about these products. On the contrary, low-involvement refers to those products and services that have low relevance and hence the consumer gathers little or no information about such products or services (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2007, p.242). But there is some security issues related to the social networking sites. In the modern society with enormous availability of advanced technologies social site’s accounts of one consumer can be hacked by other and online purchases can be done in this illegal process. But still social commerce plays an important role in increasing consumers purchasing decisions with ease (Berkman et al., 1997, pp.179-180). Conclusion: With emerging needs of fashion and style among the people in this modern world and with the growing advancements in communication technologies, fashion industries in UK (also in other countries) are getting benefitted at large (Stacks and Salwen, 2008, p.208). They have reaped the advantages of social commerce and online marketing strategies for growing and expanding their business. The relation between social commerce and consumer motivations is also helping those industries to gain momentum for sales and marketing of their products. Growing incomes of consumers are helping to accelerate their growth path. Today most of the branded products (like Nike shows) are purchased online. And these purchases will increase rapidly with time with the help of social commerce, high-involvements of consumers for those products and positive attitude of these consumers towards purchasing products online. Increasing use of Internet is also affecting these high-attitudes to purchase products online. References: 1. A I D A (w h y p e o p l e b u y), (2002), University of Bolton, available at: http://www.bolton.ac.uk/theizone/InfoZone/AIDA.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 2. Berkman, H. W., Lindquist, J. D. and M. Joseph Sirgy, (1997), Consumer behavior, USA: NTC Business Books 3. Cheung, C. M. K. et al. (2003), Online Consumer Behavior: A Review and Agenda for Future Research, 16th Bled e-Commerce Conference e-Transformation, available at: http://ecom.fov.uni mb.si/proceedings.nsf/0/c9beda3ca328c8b7c1256ea1002c72b8/$FILE/16Cheung.pdf (accessed on January 16, 2012) 4. Chuttur M.Y. (2009). Overview of the Technology Acceptance Model: Origins, Developments and Future Directions, Indiana University, USA, Sprouts: Working Papers On Information Systems, Vol. 9, No. 37, pp.1-24, available at: http://sprouts.aisnet.org/9-37 (accessed on December 21, 2011) 5. Consumer Motivations to Join a Facebook Brand Community, n.d., available at: http://marketing.conference-services.net/resources/327/2342/pdf/AM2011_0433.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 6. Friedrich, R., Merle, M. L., Peterson, M. and Alex Koster, (n.d.), The Rise of Generation C Implications for the World of 2020, Booz & Company, available at: http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/Rise_Of_Generation_C.pdf (accessed on December 27, 2011) 7. Gerhardt, W. (2008), Prosumers: A New Growth Opportunity, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), available at: http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ac79/docs/wp/Prosumer_VS2_POV_0404_FINAL.pdf (accessed on December 27, 2011) 8. Hoyer, W. D. and Macinnis, D. J. (2009), Consumer Behavior, USA: Cengage 9. Joines, J. L., Scherer, C. W. and Scheufele, D. A. (2003), Exploring motivations for consumer Web use and their implications for e-commerce, JO U R N A L O F C O N S U M E R M A R K E T IN G, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp.90-108 10. Khan, U. et al. (2004), A Behavioral Decision Theoretic Perspective on Hedonic and Utilitarian Choice, Chapter in Inside Consumption: Frontiers of Research on Consumer Motives, Goals, and Desires (Ed.), Ratneshwar, S. & Mick, D. G., available at: https://faculty gsb.stanford.edu/khan/documents/ChapterinInsideConsumption.pdf (accessed on January 16, 2012) 11. Laaksonen, P. (1994), Consumer involvement: concepts and research, London: Routledge 12. Lundkvist, A. and Yakhlef, A. (2004), Customer involvement in new service development: a conversational approach, Managing Service Quality, Vol. 14, No. 2/3, pp.249-257, available at: http://www.ida.liu.se/~steho/und/htdd01/1080140213.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 13. Marsden, P. (n.d.), Social Commerce and Monetizing Social Media, Unique Digital, available at: http://socialcommercetoday.com/downloads/White_Paper_Social_Commerce_EN.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 14. Muntinga, D. G. Moorman, M. and Smit, E. G. (2011), Introducing COBRAs Exploring motivations for brand-related social media use, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp.13-46, available at: http://brandprogramming.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Muntinga-Moorman-Smit-2011.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 15. Rogers, E. M. (2003), Diffusion of Innovation, New York: Free Press 16. Rowley, J, (2009), Online branding strategies of UK fashion retailers, Emerald Internet Research, Vol. 19, No. 3, available at: http://www.e-mmer.nl/paita2/Online%20branding%20strategies%20of%20UK%20fashion%20retailers.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 17. Sau-ling LAI, L. (2010), Social Commerce – E-Commerce in Social Media Context, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol. 72, pp.39-44, available at: http://www.waset.org/journals/waset/v72/v72-8.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 18. Schiffman, L. G. and Kanuk, L. L. (2007), Consumer Behavior, USA: Pearson 19. Schneider, G. P. (2011), Electronic Commerce, USA: Cengage 20. Social Commerce Defined, (2009), IBM, available at: ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/solutions/soa/pdfs/IBM_Social_Commerce_Whitepaper.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 21. Stacks, D. W. and Salwen, M. B. (2008), An integrated approach to communication theory and research, USA: Taylor & Francis (205) 22. UNIT 5-CONSUMER MOTIVATION AND INVOLVEMENT, (n.d.), Individual Influence on Buying Behaviour, pp.13-24, available at: http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/35422/1/Unit-5.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) 23. Vishwanath, A. and Barnett, G. A. (2011), The diffusion of innovations: a communication science perspective, UK: Peter Lang (10) 24. Wiener, B. (2009), Social Commerce Playbook, available at: http://www.360i.com/pdf/2011/360i-Social-Commerce-Playbook.pdf (accessed on December 21, 2011) Read More