The Effects of Characteristics of Social Commerce have on Customers' Purchase Decisions

This research focuses on how the factors influencing the characteristics and the words-of-mouth effect influences the consumer’s purchase decision. Especially, it was researched how the word-of-mouth influences the characteristics of social commerce and purchase decision. As a result, decision-making support system and social influence seemed to have variables and influences on word-of-mouth effect, and cost-reducing and impulse buying did not seem to have any variables or influences on the word-of-mouth effect. Also, the variables influencing the characteristic of social commerce and word-of-mouth effect seemed to influence the purchase decisions of the consumer. The variables influencing the word-of-mouth effect seemed to be influenced much greatly by the characteristics of the sender and the receiver rather than the characteristic of the message. This research has revealed that the word-of-mouth effect of social commerce influenced the purchase decisions of customers using social commerce. The significance of this research is in providing the basis for more efficient and effective marketing by social commerce corporations.