Abstract

With the appearance of social commerce (s-commerce), it is helpful for purchasers to measure ideas
about products and services. Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) exists in the significant communities
and plays an outstanding role in consumers’ daily activities. It could even be utilised as an e-marketing
instrument by firms and online businesses. For that reason, to know how consumers use eWOM becomes
a crucial issue. The aim of this study therefore is to understand the influential factors influencing
consumer adoption of eWOM in s-commerce websites, and how individuals utilise the information
contained in the online reviews. Drawn on the literature of information systems and dual process theory,
which is the information adoption model (IAM), this study proposes a research model to develop the
understanding of consumer adoption of eWOM in s-commerce. Using a survey-based approach, data was
collected from 165 s- commerce consumers, and analysed using Partial Least Square, based on Structural
Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Results highlight that Information Usefulness, Argument Quality, and
Trustworthiness were the most significant factors that determined consumers’ adoption of eWOM in
s-commerce websites. The result also revealed that there was no noteworthy relationship between
sufficiency, timeliness, and relevance as antecedents of argument quality to information usefulness.

Key words: eWOM; S-commerce; Adoption model