Affiliated Organization

Proceedings of SIGSVC Workshop

Abstract

Young adult consumers today are transforming the e-commerce arena by creating new means of doing businesses such as social commerce or social e-shopping. Our research pivots round an in-depth qualitative study that explores the meaning of the lived experience of young adult consumers who use social media for online shopping. Individual and focus group interviews were conducted in the U.S. and China. In total, we recorded 437 minutes of interviews with young adult consumers. These audio recordings are now being transcribed and the text transcriptions will be coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti. We expect to understand and be able to interpret the essences of young adults' online shopping experience, an experience in which social media provides a unique channel to construct the social experience of shopping. This role of social media is perceived as transcendental. In other words, it is not the social media itself that fulfills the social perspective of online shopping. Rather, for young adult consumers, the essences of social commerce reach beyond the media; they are bounded to the meaning, comprehension, and perception of the content and the pattern of information exchanged related to online shopping and the message reflected and interpreted by its receivers.

Volume

11

Issue

159

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