STUDY ON THE FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMERS' PURCHASE INTENTION IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETPLACE

The advent of social media applications provides a platform for retailers to sell their products directly to consumers through the social media marketplace. Though numerous studies have explored the various antecedents of consumers’ Purchase Intention in online shopping, the current study is focused on consumers’ Purchase Intention in the social media marketplace. The factors affecting the social media marketplaces are Convenience, Time Saving, Pricing, Trust, Perceived Product Value and Perceived Service Quality. The Research Instrument used to measure the constructs of the study has been adopted, and confirmatory factor analysis is performed to validate the reliability and validity of the collected 288 samples for this study. The Path analysis is executed to examine the proposed hypothetical statements using SEM analysis. It is proved that Perceived Service Quality has a more significant positive impact on the consumer’s Purchase Intention, unlike the perceived Product Value. The antecedents like Convenience, Pricing and Trust positively impact the Perceived Product Value. In comparison, Pricing and Trust significantly impact the Perceived Service Quality. Based on the findings, the vendors of the social media marketplace are suggested to focus on all the mentioned constructs, such as Convenience, Time saving, Perceived Product Value and Perceived Service Quality, to be more competitive in the social media marketplace. Finally, the current study’s limitations and the Future research direction have been discussed to improve the literature related to Social Media Marketplace.