Analyzing the Factors that Influence Consumers' Adoption of Social Commerce - A Literature Review

Social commerce, the use of social media in e-commerce, has become an attractive means for companies to generate business value from consumers' online social interactions. However, many e-commerce companies today are still trying to understand which factors drive consumers to participate in social commerce. While first empirical studies have examined one or more factors that influence consumers' adoption of social commerce, the findings of these studies are scattered across the literature base, sometimes not transparent, and not straightforwardly comparable. To synthesize these findings, we conduct a systematic literature review. After analyzing 38 academic publications, we contribute a comprehensive and structured list of factors that influence consumers' adoption of social commerce. The results of our work provide implications for future research to develop a more complete understanding of consumers' adoption of social commerce. Practitioners can use our results to improve the effectiveness of their social commerce initiatives.