The “Black Box” of Social Commerce Platforms: A Closer Look at Users’ Activities

Social Commerce (SC), as a subset of e-commerce, leverages Web 2.0 technologies to promote user contributions. Previous studies in this field mainly analyze the evolution of SC, its difference from e-commerce, and the constructs affecting the users’ intention to practice SC. There is no significant research dedicated to the activities of the users and the data elements in these platforms. We conduct a systematic literature review to collect and categorize the users’ activities. We spot several activities in different levels of SC platforms and categorize them into four key categories: social identification, social conversation, social communication, and commercial activities. Our findings contribute to the growing body of literature by addressing the characteristics of users’ activities on SC platforms. Besides, it sheds valuable insights on effectively designing the SC platforms to enhance users’ contributions.