Social media has emerged as an internet-based media, which is very much active and effervescent and such a useful media by which an individual can communicate with mass and facilitate two way traffic. It is one of the most recent and effective technology driven that offer lots of benefits (21^st Century Technologies, 1998). It has given enough confidence to the researcher for doing research in this area, also much of the researchers have not been done on the factors influencing Indian consumers’ online purchase through social media and their influence on purchase intention while purchasing online; therefore this is one of the relevant disciplines selected as an area of research. According to Brien (2011), Social Media is a technology-based platform which facilitate user-generated contents among worldwide community and publication of consumer voice. It can also be defined as an internet-based technology that is built on the theoretical and mathematical fundamentals of Web 2.0 that enable the generation and interchange of User Generated Content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Social Media Marketing Tips, 2018 suggested that in India, there are 200 million active social media users, which is almost 50% of internet users. In 2016 alone, the internet penetration reported was 24.33% and it is projected to raise at 37.36% by 2021. India becomes the second largest market for online shopping, China occupying the first position. In India, the internet market is male-dominated in terms of internet usage (71%) and female comprises very less (29%). Google+ is the second largest social media used in India which accounts 82% after Indonesia with 83% accounts. More than 60% social media users are college going students. According to Jain (2016), India is leading the US in Facebook users. Out of 155 M active social media users, 147 M access on their Smartphone and 73 M users are active everyday on Mobiles (Facebook.com, 2018). In India, the Facebook is mostly used by the age group of 18-24, which is the biggest segment in terms of population, these belong to college going students, therefore, college going students have been taken as a sample unit. Indian E-commerce is booming and more profitable, especially for business startups. E-commerce sector accounts for 2 Lakhs crore and expected to achieve 5 Lakhs crore till 2017, out of which 77% of internet users purchase products exclusively on social media and 43.8% internet users purchased at least one product online which is likely to rise by 64.4% till 2019. Those 50% online shoppers, purchase products based on the recommendations through social networking sites and 74% of online shoppers depends upon social media for taking decision regarding their online purchase (2020, 2018). Physical goods sales, in digital mode, has accounted around 16.8 B USD (Jain, 2016). In order to understand the impact of various factors on online purchase through social media, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been reviewed and three major factors, namely Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Value, and Perceived Risk are studied which broadly influence the buying through social media. Along with that, the effect of these three factors on Purchase Intention is also studied. There is vast literature available, which studied the same factors in the e-commerce domain, but there is the absence of literature studying the same in a social media context.

With the development of Web 2.0, individual and organizations have begun utilizing social media for purchasing online or conducting business online. Therefore, it is significant for the e-commerce companies to collaborate with social networking sites because ecommerce is more community and customer orientated. Consumers are now living in a social media world, where they could reach beyond physical boundaries for getting information, knowledge, community formation, and purchasing. Besides, the social and economic well-being of the communities is being tied through the networking. Organizations can engage more customers through social networking sites and control and communicate with the consumers through social media.

Social media is defined as an virtual platform, where people share their opinions, experiences, photographs, and videos on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. People can also build the network on social media. Laudon and Traver (2018) investigated that initially when social media appears, it was primarily popular amongst teenagers who used social media for playing video games. After that, it emerged tremendously for the e-commerce industry. E-commerce pushed by social media was forced to use the platform for utilizing it for ecommerce activities. Now social media is thriving and it should be utilized by organizations due to its connecting feature and providing discussion forum regarding products and services through this media. It would be a huge loss for the companies if they ignore the opportunities arises through social media and to understand their customers voice (Sin et al., 2012). Moreover, social networks function not just as a simple portal or browser, but more than that. There is an increasing importance of social media for companies and individuals due to its leading role. Therefore, business firms and people should utilize social media for their business, else, they will be away from their business. These days, more or less everybody is online and have their own account on any one of the social networking sites. In twenty-first century, Facebook becomes a new face for e-commerce companies due to its value of services, where online users can express themselves and their networks as well. In order to get the advantage, companies have developed their separate page and personalized profile on their websites to allow customers to post their comments on their online page. Likewise, firms can post their advertisement and upload their photos and videos.

Significant efforts have been made by information system researcher to analyze and predict various factors of information technology. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) acclimates the attitude, intention, and behavior association towards new technology. The main purposes of TAM model are to discuss and anticipate the IT Acceptance, provide Suggestion, and facilitate design changes before users experience with a system. suggested that in order to determine the user acceptance for particular technology, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness are the two specific belief which regulates the individual's intention to use that technology. Human behavior will grow with time and so their intention and anticipations. have also developed the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which is the extension of Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) suggested that two determinants perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determines the individual intention to use that technology or system, if that technology increases their productivity. For the meantime, PEU can be described as the extent that individual finds a particular technology that surpass the difficulties encountered during use of that technology ). Adams et al. (1992) suggested that PEU has a continual effect on PU and systems usage intention. Pousttchi (2003) have investigated through user's acceptance for mobile payment procedure that 93% of the customers observed easy handling of the system as of utmost importance. 81% respondents agree that the system made the learning very easy. Davis and Pennington (1989) implemented perceived usefulness in affecting purchase intention. Using technology, users believed that it would enhance their job performance easily, then a person will purchase products online. Perceived ease of use have also been studied in TAM model, which influence usefulness on user adoption which leads to purchase intention. As per the research was done by Pousttchi (2003), it is investigated that 91% of the respondents said that the speed, quick and smooth transaction is critical in Davis and Pennington (1989) Davis and Pennington (1989) (Davis and Pennington, 1989 online purchasing. The investigation helps the mobile service providers the importance of usefulness and efficiency with regards to digital payment through mobile, Point of Sale (POS) system, computer-generated POS, automated vending machines, and top up pre-paid mobile accounts. Barkar (2017) further extended TAM model and integrated with innovation diffusion theory to investigate the determinants of user Mobile Commerce (MC) acceptance. Purchase intention can be defined as a plan of acquirement on the way to specific products and the consumer decision making process follow to take decision about purchase (Solomon, 2009). Consumers describe the individual principles of utilizing the system if the system is able to surpass the toughness of job is improving his or her performance in a very smooth manner (Davis & 1989).

As suggested by Guritno and Siringoringo (2013), online purchase behavior is determined with the help of technology acceptance model. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model has identified two major determinants of online purchase intention; perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Both Perceived Ease of Use (PEU) and Perceived usefulness (PU) affect consumer attitude towards the usage of the technology that figures out the consumer intention to use that technology, therefore, Perceived Usefulness (PU) directly determines the consumer intention to use that technology. It is also evident from the previous studies that intention determines the actual behavior of the consumer. The model has been tested by many researchers and the outcomes identified this relationship. Lim et al. (2016) investigated the significant positive association between Perceived Usefulness (PU) and online purchase intention, where purchase intention determines the individual’s actual online purchase behavior. Therefore, Perceived Usefulness (PU) has a significant impact on the online buying behavior of consumers. The determination of online buying behavior through TAM model been supported by previous researchers (Laohapensang, 2009; He et al., 2009; Pavlou & Fygenson, Pennington, 2006) and it has been inferring that the online purchase intention is the salient predictor of online buying behavior. Based on above literature, following hypothesis has been formulated that is to be tested in the context of social media:

H1: Perceived usefulness positively influences purchase intention while shopping online through social media

It can be described as the nature and amount of risk associated with products and services when purchasing online which is perceived by consumers (Cox & Rich, 1964). When consumer takes a decision to purchase online, before that he has to consider various kinds of risk such as perceived risk or anticipated risks. Studies suggested that the consumer does online shopping do avoid physical inspection (Peterson et al., 1997). If the perceived risk is high, consumer would shift towards offline shopping, whereas if it is low, consumer prefers to go for online shopping (Tan, 1999). Perceived risk is one of the important factors which determine the online buying intention of consumers. Ariff et al. (2014) investigated the negative association between perceived risk and online purchase intention. Meskaran et al. (2014) suggested that the perceived risk is considered to be one of the major hurdles in online transaction to online purchase. Corbitt and Van Canh (2005), Miyazaki and Fernandez (2001) suggested that the perceived risk intervene in the progress of online shopping. It can be reported from various research that almost 50% consumers do not purchase online because they perceived high online risk. It is very critical to decrease the perceived risk in order to attract new customers and retain the existing customers stated that perceptions of trust and risk account for 49% of online buying decisions. Therefore, there is a need to understand the online risk perception and attitude. Online perceived risk is a factor which impact online purchase intention (Choi et al., 2003). Based on the literature, hypothesis has been formulated for the purpose of testing, as below:

H2: Perceived risk negatively influences purchase intention while shopping online through social media

Dodds (1985) suggested that the perceived value is one of the significant determinants of consumer buying process, therefore, the consumer purchase products and services will have high perceived value. He has also recommended the association between price, quality, and perceived value to define the interrelationship among these constructs. Dodds (1985) recommended that buyer will assess what company offer to them and how much they are paying for the products and services, and also what consumers get in their subjective perception. Utility Theory suggested that the consumer purchase intention increases when he or she finds that, the benefits acquired by-product, are much more than the cost incurred (Dickson & Sawyer, 1990). Thaler (1985) had also suggested that the perceived value is an important predecessor to influence consumer online purchase intention when they purchase through social media because it is the combination of transaction utility and acquisition utility. Chi et al. (2018) found that the higher the perceived value of social media to the consumer, higher will be the intention to purchase the products and services.

H3: Perceived value positively influences purchase intention while shopping online through social media

Based on the literature review, a theoretical model has been developed which demonstrate the relationship among Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Risk (PR), Perceived Value (PV), and the effect of these factors on Purchase intention (PI) (Figure 1) . The summary of Hypothesis is shown in Table 1.

Figure 1. Theoretical Model: Social Media Dependency (SMD) Inter-Relationship among PU, PV, and PR and their Impact on PI

Table 1. Hypothesis Summary

With the help of literature review, it is evident that the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model explains the Figure 1) Purchase Intention, which leads to online purchase behavior. According to TAM model, Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEU), and Trust are major factors which determine the online Purchase Intention; however, very few research studies explain the same model in the Social Media context while linking online purchase intention through social media. Through this model, the researcher tries to fit the TAM model in social media context with this, where Perceived Risk (PR), Perceived Value (PV), and Perceived Usefulness (PU) are taken as major factors to determine purchase intention of consumer who buys product and services through social media. This research is also explains the relationship among all three factors, such as PU, PR, and PV which influence the purchase intention.

In order to test the hypothesis, a structured self-developed questionnaire has been prepared by keeping in mind the research questions and objectives. The data was collected from all management graduates through both online and offline medium. All the participants surveyed are resident of India pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma In Management (PGDM) from various institutes of Pune, Maharashtra.

The Structured questionnaire has been developed using a five-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. A self-developed questionnaire has been prepared and reliability and validity of the instrument was ensured before further analyzing the data. Four primary construct, such as Perceived usefulness, Perceived Risk, Perceived value, and purchase intention identifies from the previous research which impact online buying behavior. In this study, Perceived Usefulness (PU) was measured by the use of the new technology. This included a connection with the old friends, stay in touch with people, information about e-commerce products and services, and its role in our personal lives. The Perceived Risk (PR) was measured by the various risks that involves while using the media, it includes financial risk, poor-quality products, and services risk, time risk, physical risk, privacy risk, and social pressure risk. Perceived Value (PV) is measured in terms of time value, which included quality of information, Products, and services add value to my personality and life style. In this research, the endogenous variable is Purchase Intention (PI) which is defined by user's willingness to purchase from SNSs and their intention to buy through SNSs.

Structure closed-ended questionnaire was used in the form of data collection instrument, which consists of three sections; the first section consists of general information regarding social media, such as are you using social media? Which social networking sites you use? Average time spend on social networking sites every day? and did they shop for anything from social network sites? The second part consists of the particular questions related to the variables under study; Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Value (PV), Perceived Risk (PR), and Purchase Intention (PI). The last or the third part consists of demographic details of the respondents, such as age, gender, occupation, and income. Hardcopy of the questionnaire was distributed to respondents and was collected after two days. A softcopy of the same questionnaire was created through Google Docs and the link was posted on various social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, although the response rate was very low in online as compared to offline and total 265 respondents, submitted the data collected either through online or offline method.

Non-Probability judgmental sampling was used as a method of sampling. 265 respondents’ questionnaire were received and all were complete in all aspects. As per the existing literature, sample size depends on the number of constructs and there exists a multiplier of 5, 10, 15, or 20. For the research study to be rigorous, a multiplier of 20 is commonly accepted, which means, that for one construct there have to be 20 respondents. According to the requirements of present study and number of constructs required, a sample size of 265 is appropriate to validate the model.

The following Table 2 explains the demographic profile of respondents, and it is indicated that equal number of respondents from both the gender were taken for the analysis, where all respondents (100%) were using social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. 53%, 42%, and 21% respondents use photo/video sharing sites (YouTube), Microblogging (Twitter) and blogs/ forum, respectively. In order to check the usage of social media; respondents are categorized into light user (1-3 h/day), the medium user (4-9 h/day), and heavy user (10 h or more/ day). The majority of respondents come under the category of the medium user, who use social media only 4-8 h in a day (47%) and 42.64%, 9.85 light user and heavy users, respectively. The next question was asked about whether they use social media for online shopping at least occasionally; 100% respondents say that they use social media for online shopping.

Table 2. Profile of Respondents

Through reliability analysis, the internal consistency of the questionnaire is used as a research instrument. Reliability is measured with the help of cronbach alpha. The standard value for cronbach alpha should be more than 0.60, below that the instrument will not be considered reliable and need to be revised. For all four independent dimensions, measures of reliability were above 0.60 (Table 3). Hence, the instrument fulfills the criteria of validity and reliability.

Table 3. Reliability Analysis

According to Libguides.library.kent.edu (2018), Pearson Correlation investigated whether there would be any statistically significant association among the variables under study or not or the same pairs of variables in the population, denoted by a population correlation coefficient, ρ (“rho”). It is concluded from Table 4 that there is a statistically significant association between Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Value (PV), and Perceived Risk (PR). Therefore, it signify that increase or decrease in one variable leads to increase or decrease of other variables (Statistics-help-for-students.com, 2018).

Table 4. Correlation Table Among PU, PV, and PR

Multiple regression is used when there will be more than one independent variable and one dependent variable; in this research, Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Value (PV), and Perceived Risk (PR) act as the exogenous or independent variable and Purchase Intention (PI) act as the endogenous or dependent variable. The model summary (Table 5) describes the multiple correlation coefficient (R), which measure the quality of prediction of the endogenous variable; in this case, PI. The value of correlation coefficient is 0.660, which indicates a good level of prediction. R square represents the variance in dependent variable explained by independent variables. The value of R square is 0.435 that means these independent variables explain 43.5% of the variability of the dependent variable, PI (Refer to Table 5).

Table 5. Multiple Regression Analysis

The F-ratio in the ANOVA table tests whether the overall regression model is a good fit for the data. Table 6 shows that the independent variables statistically significantly predict the dependent variable, F (3, 261) = 67.069, p < .0005 (i.e., the regression model is a good fit of the data).

Table 6. ANOVA

Unstandardized coefficients indicate how much the dependent variable varies with an independent variable when all other independent variables are held constant. The unstandardized coefficient B1, for PU, is equal to 0.272 (Coefficients Table 7). This means that for each one-unit increase in PU, there is an increase in PI of 0.272. Likewise, if PV increases by one unit, PI will increase by 0.451 units, and if PR changes in one unit, the PI will increase but very less by 0.084. The t-value and corresponding p-value are located in the "t" and "Sig." columns; indicate that the effect of PU, PV, and PR on PI is significant as the P is less than 0.05. The summary of multiple Regressions is shown in Table 8.

Table 7. Coefficients

Table 8. Summary of Multiple Regressions

A multiple regression was applied to predict dependent variable Purchase Intention (PI) from Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Value (PV), and Perceived Risk (PR). It has been significantly proved that PU, PV, and PR statistically significantly predicts Purchase Intention (PI) at F (3, 261) = 67.069, p < .05, R2 = .435. All three variables added are statistically significant to the prediction, p < .05 (Figure 2 and Table 9).

Figure 2. Dependent Variables

Table 9. Summary of Result

The purpose of this research is to find out the relationship among Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Value and Perceived Risk, and to investigate the impact of these variables on purchase intention while purchasing through social media. The result shows that there is a significant positive correlation reported between Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Value, and Perceived Risk, therefore any change in any of the variables under study will lead to change in other variables. In case of Perceived Risk, the value of correlation is negative, but significant therefore it can be said that if Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Value decreases when Perceived Risk increases people would not find it useful and value addition happens, if more risk is involved while purchasing through social media. Another analysis was done to investigate the impact of these three variables (PU, PV, and PR) on purchase intention when purchased through social media. In order to check the validity of the model, ANOVA is applied and it proves model fit hence the above three variables (PU, PV, and PR) significantly predict the value of Purchase Intention (PI). The result of multiple regression investigated that there is a significant impact of Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Value, and Perceived Risk on Purchase Intention although Perceived Risk negatively influence the Purchase Intention while purchasing through social media. Therefore, we can say that people found social media very useful in the sense that it really helps people to reconnect with them, getting products and services information very easily and get the information about E-commerce companies, which really influence their purchase intention. It is also found that the social media adds value to their personal life by providing good quality product and services as well as it helps them in saving a lot of time and money while shopping. Another important thing is that the people find social media less risky such as financial risk related to their transaction; getting poor quality products and coming under social pressure is very less hence it increases the chance to purchase from social media. The findings have verified from the previous researches done on the same or the other aspects of E-commerce and social media, and the results have been validated. This research have identified some key factors which impact online buying behavior in regards to social media. The results of this study will become a guiding force to the individuals and organizations which plans to utilize social media for ecommerce. The study recommended following important things which could guide other researchers to expend this research in the following ways like, first, it would recommend to take large sample size that helps to get more reliable information and findings would be generalized. Second, few more factors can be added as an exogenous variables and the moderation and mediation effect can be tested, which can intervene in the online buying process, such as Perceived security, Perceived privacy and perceived costs. Lastly, ecommerce is a world wide sensation, which is valuable for future researchers to study factors that affect young consumers' online purchase intention through social media through world wide scenario.