The impact of social media characteristics on e-commerce use behaviour among youth in developing countries

Social media has influenced the e-commerce buying behaviours because of its capability to enhance customer's experiences. Social media can help in conveying ideas, shaping perceptions and modifying buying intentions of the targeted audience. This paper investigates the impact of social media on trust and willingness to buy through e-commerce context in developing nation's youth. We identified seven characteristics of social media which influence consumer's behaviour and motivate consumers to buy online. Convenience sampling technique was used to collect data from international students of Chinese universities. The respondents were from 34 developing countries. The findings showed that social media can serve as excellent tool to enhance trust for e-commerce use and increase the willingness to buy online in developing countries. Hierarchical multiple regression showed significant variance among the predictors. This study contributes to theoretical and managerial understanding of social media for building trust and willingness to buy online. The study includes a broad spectrum of social media characteristics and their influence on e-commerce.