Understanding Egypt's emerging social shoppers

This paper analyses recent preferences, motives and patterns of consumers shopping online and influenced by social media in Egypt. The emerging global trend of social commerce is rapidly disrupting the ways consumers take decisions and shop online. Egypt being the largest retail market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with the highest social media popularity among internet users, provides an example to examine social commerce in developing economies in MENA region. Through a representative sample of the market, the paper highlights key cognition, emotional, experience and personality aspects that influence consumers' decision making and orientation towards trusting electronic vendors. Also, the paper examines the variance in behaviour and perception between different demographic, cultural, geographic and behavioural consumer segments. The paper also informs electronic vendors and researchers on the processes of trust building and risk perception in social commerce.