THE INFLUENCE OF EASE OF USE, USEFULNESS, AND INFORMATION QUALITY ON CONSUMERS’ SATISFACTION WITH PURCHASING FROM SOCIAL MEDIA GROUPS

Social media platforms were initially encouraged as a means for socially interacting with family and friends. However, with the rapid advancements in the commerce environment, social media platforms have soon become known for conducting business transactions, which prompted the formation of social commerce as an extension to electronic commerce. Worldwide, Facebook and WhatsApp are two of the most popular and widely used social media platforms. Both Facebook and WhatsApp offer an array of functions that are perceived to be valuable for business transactions, including the ability to create virtual groups. Virtual groups are not only used for the purpose of socialising, but also for marketing products and services. In particular, it offers businesses and individual sellers the advantage of creating a niche environment in which consumers who share similar needs and interests can collaborate. Despite the benefits of these virtual groups, businesses and individual sellers should continuously monitor whether their social media groups are satisfying consumers’ needs. Dissatisfied consumers might resort to supporting competitors, which will influence customer retention and loyalty, and ultimately the profitability and success of a business. The purpose of the study was to determine the influence of ease of use, usefulness and information quality on consumers’ satisfaction with purchasing from Facebook and WhatsApp groups. An external international research company was utilised for the data collection of this study, which resulted in 412 participants who completed the electronic self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were the statistical techniques applied in the data analysis. The findings of this study indicate that the ease of use, usefulness and information quality of Facebook and WhatsApp groups have a statistically significant positive influence on customers’ satisfaction with purchasing from these groups. Moreover, from the factors measured, usefulness is the strongest contributor towards the consumers’ satisfaction with purchasing from Facebook and WhatsApp groups. As such, it is recommended that businesses and individual sellers on social media groups, such as Facebook and WhatsApp groups, concentrate on ensuring that the groups remain easy to use and that the information provided is of high quality so that the potential buyers perceive it to be useful for their needs. The results and recommendations emanating from this study contribute towards the limited literature available on social media groups and provide insight to maintaining consumers’ satisfaction with purchasing from these groups.