Surfing or flowing? How to retain e-customers on the internet

Abstract

Purpose - Social commerce websites entail a completely new scenario for retaining e-customers due to the richness of their social interactions. Nowadays, users can interact with companies and with other users; hence, it is considered important to study how social stimuli affect users. Drawing on the Stimulus Organism Response framework and Flow Theory, this paper aims to propose that the social stimulus (sPassion) has a positive effect on the organism (state of flow) causing positive responses from users (flow consciousness, trust and eLoyalty). Design/methodology/approach - The data were collected through an online survey. The sample consists of 771 users of social commerce websites, of which 51 per cent are male and 49 per cent female, aged between 16 and 80 years. The structural equation model statistical software EQS 6 was used to test the model. Findings - The empirical results confirm that passionate users are prone to experience state of flow, and, as a consequence, they are conscious of this optimal experience, resulting in an increase in trust. Originality/value - The originality of this research stems from analysing how users’ passion on social commerce creates an optimal experience that boost customers’ retention.

Keywords

• Flow theory
• Customer retention
• Social commerce
• sPassion
• SOR model