What motivates customers to participate in social commerce? The impact of technological environments and virtual customer experiences.

•A research model is proposed to examine the factors that influence participation behavior of a customer in social commerce.•Social commerce intention is determined by customers’ virtual experiences, namely, social support, social presence and flow.•Customers’ virtual experiences are influenced by perceived interactivity, personalization and sociability features of the social commerce environment.•The results of the model tests using Renren and SinaWeibo samples are significantly different.