Abstract: With the proliferation of social commerce, a new e-commerce business model, that is, social shopping community (SSC) has emerged. The key revenue source of a SSC is facilitating online purchase and thus the purchase conversion rate of consumers is crucial for the sustainability of a SSC. However, there is a corresponding lack of understanding about what motivates consumers to purchase from SSCs. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, we develop a model from an integrative perspective of cognitive and emotional trust, and use it to investigate how technological characteristics (sociability and self reference) of SSCs influence consumers’ cognitive (cognitive trust in competence and cognitive trust in integrity) trust and emotional trust in SSCs, as well as how trust in turn affects their purchase intention. The results of our survey of 405 members of Meilishuo, a Chinese SSC, indicate that sociability has a significant impact on cognitive trust in integrity and emotional trust, and self reference significantly increases cognitive trust and emotional trust. Cognitive trust in SSCs’ competence and integrity and emotional trust in SSCs stimulate their purchase intention. Further, emotional trust plays a greater role in determining purchase intention than cognitive trust.

Key words: social shopping, technological characteristics, trust, purchase intention, S-O-R framework