INTRODUCTION:

The way media, using internet, has introduced its way of communication with its users and also the innovative platforms for consumers’ communications created over the last decade, certainly it has become the game changer. Especially the social media platform is the biggest platform in present days which enables consumers to gather and exchange the huge amount of information about what is happening around the world. The rise of a plethora of such active media provides consumers with n number of options to satisfy their informational need.

‘‘The digital innovations of the last decade made it effortless, indeed second nature, for audiences to talk back and talk to each other’’ (Deighton and Kornfeld 2009).

New media have empowered consumers as they are served as retailers on Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal etc. today. Consumers nowadays don’t require computers always as smartphones and wireless internet services are easily available. Critical reviews of products and rating on e-tailing platforms allow consumers for real time information exchange which is becoming integral element of consumer buying behaviour.

The increased popularity of social media such as Facebook and Twitter has created a new delivery platform in e-commerce called social commerce. Its major feature is conducting various types of commercial activities on social media to take advantage of online social capital. Users of social media are encouraged to share product information with their friends or sell products or services via social media. Consumers may also consult their social community to seek advice in their purchasing decisions. To achieve such purposes, these Web sites often provide functions for their users to easily share commercial information within their social networks. Facebook’s “Like” button, Twitter’s “Tweet” button are samples of this feature. (Liang, T. P., et al. 2011).

E-commerce enables consumers to search extensively the desired product information, variety of products, different brands, qualitative product reviews and recommendations, price information etc. And suddenly these benefits have become competitive advantage among e-commerce giants. The stiff competition among the e-commerce companies has become coercive to stay updated and to give out more benefits to consumer and to be more consumers centric. This competition extends the stint of consumers and their product access. The extended stint leads consumers to accept e-commerce and technology, to have better and quality life and further lifestyle too. At the other end, these competitive efforts help e-commerce companies to generate revenue and make them accountable to provide the best possible service.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A DETERMINANT FACTOR:

Looking from the e-commerce perspective, Media and E-commerce relation is abiding. The Media and E-commerce business proliferation are two sides of coin which is held by consumers undeniably. The individual acceptance of e-commerce services is the key to the survival of these firms in this massive competitive industry.

Bhattacherjee, A. (2000) reports that subjective norm is an important predictor of e-commerce acceptance and external influence is a significant determinant of subjective norm. Media especially Social Media nowadays are external influence on behaviour of consumers. The overload of this medium of promotion and different types of inclusive discussions indirectly control the behaviour of consumers which ultimately propel the e-commerce business in the market. These media platforms are so much successful in infusing the e-commerce in individual’s life.

The quest for quality of life is a growing concern for individuals and communities seeking to find sustainable life satisfaction in a technologically changing world. (Leung, L., and Lee, P. S. 2005). Globalization and rapid advances in information technology offer us vast, unprecedented opportunities to improve life quality. Information technology is not only responsible for change in business style but also change in media. Hence media plays big role to create awareness among individuals regarding e-commerce and its benefits undoubtedly. Media backed by internet access caters qualitative and quantitative informational thirst of any individual at any time. Especially social media nowadays transform informational disadvantaged individual into self empowered and satisfied one. Sitting at home or in office or in leisure time, these types of media provide huge and diverse information to anyone in just clicks.

These are also used to promote many things in easy way. Coming towards the e-commerce today, all types of media are successful in promoting e-commerce platform. The increased popularity of social networking sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, has opened opportunities for new business models for electronic commerce, often referred to as social commerce. (Liang, T. P., and Turban, E. 2011).

Social Commerce involves web technologies and infrastructure to support online communication and to assist in searching and buying product and service. Social commerce is social media environment which generally refers to the delivery of e-commerce activities and transactions. It also supports social interactions and user content contributions. Here the significance media is considerable. Social commerce is just impossible without social networking media. Large number of members participating in social networks, word of mouth and other activities in social networking are important factors that affect the attitude and the behaviour of consumer. And here e-commerce is successful in promoting themselves.

These e-commerce giants have anticipated the power of social networking media and started promoting themselves on it. Facebook, Twitter etc. social networking sites give suggestions and advertise the e-commerce benefits and usefulness. The interlinking and redirecting from one to another site in social networking have made easy to access the exact required information filtering unwanted other sources. Social Commerce has two very essential elements which are social media and commercial activities. E-commerce giants use the social media to carry out commercial activities and they are quite successful.

An article by Mark Macdonald on shopify website said social media impact the e-commerce industry. He analyzed data from 37 million social media visits that led to 529,000 orders. He found that Facebook dominates as a source of social traffic and sales. Nearly two thirds of all social media visits to Shopify stores come from Facebook. Plus, averages of 85% of all orders from social media come from Facebook.

Source: https://www.shopify.in/blog/12731545-which-social-media-platforms-drive-the-most-sales-infographic

So the social media is somehow more responsible to promote and to generate business for e-commerce. The figures above depicts the role social media giant Facebook in generating business for online sellers and its comparative contribution against its competitors. As social media is innovating new ways of communication we definitely look forward for something very new business promotions and way of commercials transactions.

E-COMMERCE AND CONSUMER LIFE QUALITY:

The social media is the biggest platform to promote the business, but it is successful only because of acceptance of technology in user’s routine life. It can be also seen in other way. The innovations in technology and its deployment in society are rather responsible for acceptance of improved media platforms in user’s life. As technology upgrades the life quality of users will also change. This change in life style impacts on the behaviour and attitude of individual. Every human being carries different behaviour, different perception and different attitude. Hence the acceptance of technology also impacts in different manner. But the ultimate result is the improved quality of life.

Coming to e-commerce success, major role is played by social media but it is also a resultant of clever selection and use of social media by e-commerce companies. The successful strategies in established markets are more or less repeated by these firms in new target market and got the same results. The main element of strategy is building customer relationship. And here also new media plays big role indeed.

The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the key to success for e-commerce firms (Palmatier et al., 2006; Jap and Ganesan, 2000) as consumers have become active participants and play major role. (Hennig-Thurau, T., et al. 2010) One of the barriers to the growth of e-commerce is that without face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions with salespeople, consumers tend to experience uncertainty or discomfort associated with making a purchase online (Choi and Rifon, 2002). Thus, irrespective of the form of retailers, the creation and maintenance of a strong consumer base is essential for the long-term development and continuation of e-commerce. (Yoon, D. et al. 2008). Hence CRM oriented companies deliver customised products and services to the targeted consumers in order to create and maintain customer relationships and loyalty. Once a positive relationship with a company is formed, consumers show their satisfaction with and loyalty to the product the company manufactures (Morris, et al. 1999).

This CRM in B2C is two way communications. In e-commerce consumers always strive for quality product considering price too. Satisfaction and loyalty towards particular quality brands increase the repurchase of these products which results into customer delight. And this customer delight improves the life quality of customers. E-commerce benefits the society at large and vulnerable groups in particular are analyzed within the wider framework of actual needs and existing facilities of these communities Sumanjeet (2009). There are many implications of e-commerce on society which fosters the living standards and quality of life. The major implications are on Health, education and Human Resource Development, Poverty Reduction, Gender Equality, Employment Opportunities, Access to Information on Community level and overall empowerment for betterment of community.

In broad perspective, having impact on country’s economy, e-commerce is promising significant instrument to make sure comprehensive growth. (Hiwarkar, T. 2013). The overall growth in nation’s economy certainly improves the quality life style its citizens. Hence the e-commerce is responsible for improving life quality of consumers for sure.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MARKETING TOOL:

Social media gives marketers a voice and a way to communicate with peers, customers, and potential consumers. It personalizes the "brand" and helps you to spread your message in a relaxed and conversational way. The explosive growth of social media in the last few years has been well documented, and for many, a life without Twitter and Facebook is inconceivable (Chatterjee, K. 2014). Due to social media and its huge user base, businesses and brands have very strong chance to create a strong image and position by interacting with customers directly. With the use of direct end user communication businesses can strengthen the perception by promoting core values. It has become mandatory for companies to listen and learn from their audience to sustain and to stand out from the stiff competition. The active use of social media is one of the easiest ways to reach a large audience and create company image and brand name in the heads of potential customers. Social media can take B2C engagements to the next level and help forming meaningful business relationships via social media.

According to DeMers, J. (2014) social media has huge potential to increase sales by performing as marketing tool. Following are the benefits where social media is used as marketing tools.

· Increased Brand Recognition.

· Improved Brand Loyalty.

· More Opportunities to Convert.

· Higher Conversion Rate.

· Higher Brand Authority.

· Increased Inbound Traffic.

· Decreased Marketing Costs.

· Better Search Engine Raking.

· Richer Customer Experience.

· Improved Customer Insights.

The above benefits are significant to sustain a long term social media campaign. The sooner business start social media campaigning, sooner it will start growing. The potential losses are insignificant as the amount of time and money take to create social media campaigning is very minimal as compared to other marketing channels. So the social media is overall profiting package for business and brand.

CONCLUSION:

Social media is the current and next big thing for business and users both to get benefited. At one side it generates business through creating promotion platform from business and at another side it creates platforms for users to gather huge amount of information and makes them aware by creating many communication channels. In country like India with huge potential market, Social Media is the biggest game changer ever. Social media builds bridges between the e-commerce business and target market by creating opportunities and proving benefits. It becomes mediator in e-commerce benefits and life quality of consumers. Acting as comprehensive beneficial package, social media is certainly become a determinant factor to be considered for both e-commerce giants and consumers. Social media with minimum cost and time involvement, user portability, 24*7 availability, large connectivity, direct communication, user friendly nature and as marketing tool is the current key success deciding factor. These finding are drawn by researcher on the basis of reviewing existing literature. Researchers have divided their study in three identified phenomenon a) social media as a determinant factor, b) e-commerce and consumer life quality and c) social media as a marketing tool. In each section, researchers illustrated the layout of different studies and their relation with topic of study.

In sum, social media provides platform for e-commerce and other business to promote themselves as well as make consumers more aware and information seeker. CRM using social media, business are bounded to provide consumer oriented services with maximum benefits. At user end, consumers receive better offerings and quality services which lead to live quality life. Overall both ends contribute in nation’s economy.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

The authors are grateful to the authorities of Amity Business School, Amity University Mumbai for the facilities.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 21.06.2017 Modified on 11.09.2017

Asian Journal of Management. 2018; 9(1):12-16.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2018.00003.3