Social Media Marketing Platform(Wechat)’s Impact on Consumers Buying Behavior in E-commerce: Customer Engagement as a Moderator

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the effect of Social Media Marketing Platform(SMMP) on the buying behavior of consumers in E-commerce, using the WeChat as the platform for the SMMP, and customer engagement as the moderating factor. Leveraging multiple aspects of people’s lives, from communication to payment and commerce, such as the WeChat, turn into marketing platforms. Although there has been a trend towards the use of social commerce strategies, this study identifies the lack of knowledge on the impact of engagement-driven marketing on consumers under the WeChat. To fill this gap, the current research employs a quantitative, cross-sectional survey approach grounded on the Social Exchange Theory (SET) which focuses on the reciprocal exchange of value between the brands and the consumers. The primary data was collected using a close-ended online/ electronic survey questionnaire for the WeChat users with the age bracket of 18-55+ years. And 234 of those were valid responses which were then INTERVAL: analyzed using the SPSS. The scale was comprised of 22 items with questions relating to perceived Social Media Marketing Platform (information content, interaction, etc.), customer factors (trust, satisfaction, data security), and consumers’ behavior patterns (repeat purchase). The Likert-scale responses allowed for the use of descriptive statistics and further analysis including correlation analysis, regression analysis, and Hayes’ PROCESS moderation analysis. The results suggest that the SMMP (Wechat) plays a vital role in the buying behavior of the consumers of the WeChat. However, customer engagement further improves this relationship, as it acts as a moderator, bolstering the effect of marketing content on purchase decisions. The findings support increases in engagement in terms of emotion, trust, and satisfaction to boost the impact of social media mechanisms. Realtime communication, content customization, and integrated reward programs also play to this effect.