Dear Colleagues,

Social commerce is a new subset of e-commerce with the aim of social media (Hajli, 2019). The defining feature of social commerce systems is their 'forum for consumer-to-consumer communication.' The afforded social interaction is the key differentiator between social commerce and traditional e-commerce (Hajli, 2015). Online communities, forums, ratings, reviews and recommendations as social commerce constructs (Hajli, 2015) have transformed e-commerce activities and given rise to the social commerce channel (Hajli & Sims, 2015). It also created good opportunities for firms (Hajli, 2015; Tajvidi, Richard, Wang, & Hajli, 2018; Tajvidi, Wang, Hajli, & Love, 2017). An emergent social commerce consumer-to-consumer business e-commerce channel is sharing commerce. Exemplars of sharing commerce include couch surfing or the house swapping phenomenon, where lodging is shared for mutual gain.

Especially in the current COVID-19 era where 'couch shopping' is prevalent, and consumers crave more social interaction, research into the information-sharing capabilities of social commerce systems has increased in importance. In the current era, consumers support each other online by sharing their information and knowledge about products and services (Hajli, 2014a; Hajli, Shanmugam, Papagiannidis, Zahay, & Richard, 2017). The consumer-to-consumer social support found in social commerce platforms improves the shopping process, adding value for both businesses and consumers (Hajli, 2020; Hajli & Featherman, 2017; Hajli, Sims, Zadeh, & Richard, 2017). However, there are some challenges to e-commerce, such as trust (Hajli, 2014b; Hajli, Lin, Featherman, & Wang, 2014), privacy (Hajli, Shirazi, Tajvidi, & Huda, 2020), information credibility (Hajli, 2018) and ethical issues (Nadeem, Juntunen, Hajli, & Tajvidi, 2019; Nadeem, Juntunen, Shirazi, & Hajli, 2020) which persuade scholars to look to find the solutions for them.  

The above argument persuaded us to develop this Special Issue to invite papers, both theoretical and empirical, addressing the above and related topics as given in the list below. Indicative themes of relevance to this issue include (but are not limited to) the following:

• What is social commerce?
• What are the new changes in social commerce and e-commerce?
• The new e-commerce features and capabilities
• The best practices that large e-commerce vendors leverage
• The new hybrid shopping experiences that smaller retailers may need to design to create new shopping experiences built around consumer safety and convenience
• Consumer perspectives on new shopping experiences and research into new shopping models and modes
• E-commerce, social commerce, and sharing commerce: what are the links?
• Using e-commerce and social commerce for branding
• How do big data analytics support social commerce activities?
• How can social commerce support big data analytics?

References:

Hajli, N. (2014a). The role of social support on relationship quality and social commerce. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 87, 17-27.

Hajli, N. (2014b). A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of Market Research, 56(3), 387-404.

Hajli, N. (2015). Social commerce constructs and consumer's intention to buy. International Journal of Information Management, 35(2), 183-191.

Hajli, N. (2018). Ethical environment in the online communities by information credibility: a social media perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 149(4), 799-810.

Hajli, N. (2019). The impact of positive valence and negative valence on social commerce purchase intention. Information Technology & People.

Hajli, N. (2020). Social commerce and the future of e-commerce. Computers in Human Behavior, 108, 106133. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.09.009

Hajli, N., & Featherman, M. S. (2017). Social commerce and new development in e-commerce technologies. International Journal of Information Management, 37(3), 177-178. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.03.001

Hajli, N., Lin, X., Featherman, M., & Wang, Y. (2014). Social word of mouth: How trust develops in the market. International Journal of Market Research, 56(5), 673-689.

Hajli, N., Shanmugam, M., Papagiannidis, S., Zahay, D., & Richard, M.-O. (2017). Branding co-creation with members of online brand communities. Journal of Business Research, 70, 136-144.

Hajli, N., Shirazi, F., Tajvidi, M., & Huda, N. (2020). Towards an Understanding of Privacy Management Architecture in Big Data: An Experimental Research. British Journal of Management.

Hajli, N., & Sims, J. (2015). Social commerce: The transfer of power from sellers to buyers. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 94 (Supplement C), 350-358. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.01.012

Hajli, N., Sims, J., Zadeh, A. H., & Richard, M.-O. (2017). A social commerce investigation of the role of trust in a social networking site on purchase intentions. Journal of Business Research, 71, 133-141.

Nadeem, W., Juntunen, M., Hajli, N., & Tajvidi, M. (2019). The role of ethical perceptions in consumers' participation and value co-creation on sharing economy platforms. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-21.

Nadeem, W., Juntunen, M., Shirazi, F., & Hajli, N. (2020). Consumers' value co-creation in sharing economy: The role of social support, consumers' ethical perceptions and relationship quality. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 151, 119786.

Tajvidi, M., Richard, M.-O., Wang, Y., & Hajli, N. (2018). Brand co-creation through social commerce information sharing: The role of social media. Journal of Business Research.

Tajvidi, M., Wang, Y., Hajli, N., & Love, P. E. (2017). Brand value Co-creation in social commerce: The role of interactivity, social support, and relationship quality. Computers in Human Behavior, 105238.

Dr. Nick Hajli
Dr. Farid Shirazi
Guest Editors

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• social commerce
• social media
• e-commerce
• online communities
• branding
• big data
• consumer behaviour