Purpose – This paper aims to improve understanding of the reasons why people trust the
information about product recommendations on social shopping networks of websites, a new
e-commerce method which combines social networking and shopping, and to investigate the impact of
the trust on the consumers’ intention to purchase products from the online shop of a website.
Design/methodology/approach – An online survey instrument was developed to gather data, and
1,219 questionnaires were used to test the relationships in the proposed model.
Findings – The results indicated that perceived ability, perceived benevolence/integrity, perceived
critical mass, and trust in a website were four important antecedents of trust in product
recommendation in a social networking site. In addition trust in product recommendations can
influence the consumers’ intention to purchase from the website through increasing their intention to
purchase the products.
Research limitations/implications – The research model demonstrated the importance of trust in
product recommendations to online consumers’ transaction intention.
Practical implications – The results of the study showed that trust in product recommendations
will influence consumers’ purchase intentions. Therefore a social shopping website or the websites
transforming into social shopping websites should put more emphasis on ways to establish the virtual
communities or social networks which can provide the information about product recommendations
that consumers trust.
Originality/value – The study provides a comprehensive framework of the antecedents and effects
of consumers’ trust in recommendations in the context of social shopping.