PRIORITIZING SOCIAL COMMERCE SERVICE QUALITY DIMENSIONS FOR MALAYSIAN MODEST FASHION INDUSTRY

Abstract

This study aims to develop a hierarchical model for Social Commerce Service Quality (SCSQ) in order to rank the quality dimensions necessary for measuring the performance of the Malaysian modest fashion industry. This study used a sequential mixed methods approach. Initially, online semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants where eight dimensions and 30 sub-dimensions were revealed. Then, 61 regular social commerce customers participated in a quantitative questionnaire survey whereby the SCSQ hierarchical model was created and the identified dimensions were prioritised using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) relative measurement. It has been discovered that Privacy and Security emerged as the most crucial dimensions, followed by Functional Quality and Design Quality, meanwhile Trustworthy Platform acts as a crucial sub-dimension. To operationalise the hierarchical model, AHP’ absolute measurement was used where a survey was conducted on 33 customers who had previous experience with social commerce purchases from three different Malaysian modest fashion brands. It is found that Malaysian modest fashion brands were at a good stage of SCSQ evaluation and also pointed out certain areas that could be enhanced. The developed model is unique and can be used not only by Malaysian modest fashion practitioners but most social commerce businesses to measure their SCSQ performance.