Social media and E-tailing with the moderating role of gender

The continuous expansion of social media networks and electronic retailing has attracted considerable attention in the field of electronic commerce research. Despite this growing interest, limitations persist in understanding the relationship between social media gratifications and online shopping, as well as the moderating role of gender in this dynamic. This study examines the influence of various social media gratifications on electronic retailing and investigates how gender moderates these effects. Anchored in the Uses and Gratifications theoretical framework, this study explores the influence of product information, convenience, social interactions, business pages, and online reviews on online shopping, with gender examined as a moderating variable. Data were collected via an online survey, yielding a final sample of 400 respondents analyzed using structural equation modeling. The structural model accounted for a substantial proportion of variance in online shopping (R2 ≥ .50). Results indicate that social media convenience, business pages, and online reviews significantly and positively influence online shopping. Moreover, gender differences were observed: convenience was the primary gratification driving online shopping among male consumers, whereas business pages and online reviews were more influential for female consumers. This study offers original contributions by integrating specific social media gratifications and gender moderation within a unified conceptual framework, while providing practical implications for electronic retailing strategies.