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H3d: Users’ extent of confirmation is positively associated with their gratification of the perceived self-presentation of the e-commerce app.
2.8 Uses and Gratifications Theory
Consumers’ attitude is known as one of the main incentives for the intention of continuing participating in actions. Many communications studies have found that a positive attitude toward the mediums would create positive effects on people’s usage of informational technology, mobile service, and social networking websites (Nysveen et al., 2005; Pelling et al., 2009). Hsu and Lin (2016) found out that both hedonic values and utilitarian values will lead to positive attitudes toward mobile apps. Additionally, the positive attitudes will then affect consumers’ continuous usages of the mobile apps (Hsu et al., 2016). Additionally, the results of many marketing studies have shown that consumers’ behavioral intention, such as shopping in retail stores, receiving mobile apps, and online shopping, can also be influenced by their attitude toward the channels (Macintosh et al., 1997; Tsang et al., 2004; Vijayasarathy, 2004). Moreover, Lien and Cao (2014) found out that the gratifications of entertainment, information, and sociality would have a positive influence on attitudes toward WeChat, a social networking app, and further lead to a positive word of mouth communication. Also, Sheth and Kim (2017) did a research on how consumers’ attitude should be affected by the marketing strategies in social media. They discovered that the aspects of information sharing, peer pressure, entertainment, and emotional connection in a social media setting would all cause positive attitude which would intrigue purchase intention from brands (Sheth et al., 2017). As a consequence, it is likely that positive attitude brought out by social
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media features could further lead to consumers’ continuance behavior intention for the e-commerce apps.
Furthermore, satisfaction is a repeatedly discussed positive attitude in many areas of studies (Linder-Pelz, 1982). And, specifically, uses and gratifications theory has been broadly applied in communication research (Nysveen et al., 2005). For instance, Chang (2015) employed uses and gratifications theory and proposed that entertainment, socialization, information-seeking, and self-presentation effects user’s perceived of interaction. Park, Kee, and Valenzuela (2009) proposed four of the primary reasons why people wanted to join Facebook groups are: entertainment, socializing, information, and self-status seeking also based on uses and gratification Theory. The perceived interaction than further influences satisfaction and the intention of continue usage of social media. Lastly, Lee and Ma (2012) use uses and gratification Theory to explain the influences of information seeking, socializing, entertainment, and status seeking on the intention of news sharing on social media. Apparently, the theory has been used many times to prove the repeated behavior of users and consumers caused by their satisfaction with the different aspects of communication and marketing services.
As a result, this study proposed to apply uses and gratifications theory and learn if the four social marketplace features, which are entertainment, information, social identification, and self-presentation, perceived by mobile users could directly lead to their satisfaction with the e-commerce apps (see Figure 9).
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H4a: Users’ gratification of the perceived information is positively associated with their satisfaction with the e-commerce app.
H4b: Users’ gratification of the perceived entertainment is positively associated with their satisfaction with the e-commerce app.
H4c: Users’ gratification of the perceived social identification is positively associated with their satisfaction with the e-commerce app.
H4d: Users’ gratification of the perceived self-identification is positively associated with their satisfaction with the e-commerce app.
Fig. 9. Research Model
Stickiness
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CHAPTER 3 Methodology
3.1 Survey Process
This study aims to understand the general expectation and satisfaction toward the social marketplace factors which would trigger mobile users’ stickiness of the e-commerce apps. It is better to reach as many mobile users, whom have the habit of visiting the e-commerce app of Shopee Taiwan regularly, as possible. As a result, this study employed the quantitative method of online questionnaire survey with convenience sampling. And notably, the subjects of this research were mobile users whom have visited Shopee Taiwan this year (2019), when Shopee claimed to start enabling new social marketplace functions on the app. Also, because the purpose of this study is to understand consumers in general, both gender and all ages were targeted. However, Santitarn Sathirathai, the Group Chief Economist of Sea Group, had claimed that the young females under 35 years old would shop more frequently than male consumers with all categories of items on Shopee (Chen, 2019). And most of the participants in this study were female Shopee users under the age of 35, whom matched the consumer profile of the e-commerce platform. In addition, the questionnaire was distributed in different groups on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Dcard. And to increase the willingness for mobile users to participate, there was a gift certificate lottery of 7-11 gift cards for those whom had both provided effective samples and left their contact information (e-mail). It was expected to receive at least 300
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effective samples from different online consumers in Taiwan of all ages and genders for this study.