Potential and Advantages of Social Shopping in Portugal

Abstract

Social networks are present in our day-to-day and have a strong influence in almost all our personal and professional aspects. Among several benefits and challenges brought by Social Networks, we cannot ignore their potential in what e-commerce is concerned. Social shopping allows potential buyers to obtain information and opinions issued by other buyers with similar profiles, on products and services they are planning to acquire. This way, instead of allowing a brand or product to create in the community users the need or will to buy, it is the community itself, through social networks, to self-influence in the sense of defining what are the products and services they want to be marketed and in what way, thus obtaining better prices and reaffirming its identity. To accompany the acceptance of cybernauts of these new communication spaces, like for instance Facebook, and understanding whether these users are as well motivated in participating and taking advantage of these platforms as online shopping places, seems to be a relevant issue. In the present article, we investigate how Social Shopping affects the Portuguese consumers in their purchases.