Marketing by live streaming: How to interact with consumers to increase their purchase intentions

Abstract

Live streaming e-commerce, as a kind of new information technology-based business model, is currently the most popular marketing approach, especially in China. This research divides live streaming interactions into three dimensions, interactions for obtaining product information (IPI), interactions for grasping the purchase dynamics of others (IPD), and interactions for obtaining monetary incentives (IMI), and proposes a comprehensive framework to examine whether live streaming interactions with consumers promote both social presence and consumer conformity, and thereby enhance their purchase intentions. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) with AMOS was conducted to analyze data collected from 576 Chinese consumers. The main findings are that, first, both IPI and IPD can exert a direct impact on social presence and consumer conformity; second, IMI has a positive impact only on social presence; third, among the three dimensions of interactions, both IPI and IPD tend to increase purchase intention through social presence and consumer conformity, while IMI increases purchase intention only via social presence. Furthermore, given the differences between experience and search products, the results of the multigroup analysis indicate inconsistent path coefficients between the two product groups. This study provides a novel perspective on live streaming e-commerce with evidence on how interactions matter in driving purchase intentions, enriches the content of live streaming e-commerce literature and explores the practical implications for marketing managers are looking for marketing by live streaming.

A study of the factors influencing the viewers’ satisfaction and cognitive assimilation with livestreaming commerce broadcast in Hong Kong

“…The results of this study also emphasise the importance of social presence in livestreaming commerce, which coincides with prior studies [ 7 , 53 ]. This finding is consistent with previous claims that perceived hedonic values and social values are significantly influenced by social presence in online contexts [ 100 ].…”

Formation mechanism of user stickiness in live e-commerce: the hybrid PLS-SEM and ANN approach

“…Some researchers have studied the mechanism underlying the purchase intention of consumers from many perspectives including information technology (IT) affordance (Sun et al, 2019), online celebrity-product, product-livestreaming content matching (Park and Lin, 2020), swift guanxi (Zhang et al, 2020), reducing uncertainty (Lu and Chen, 2021), eye-tracking experiments (Fei et al, 2021), emotional contagion (Meng et al, 2021), emotional intermediary (Zhou and Tong, 2022) and mental imagery quality and customer trust (Wang et al, 2022). Other researchers have studied impulse buying in live e-commerce from perspectives including popularity cues (Lou et al, 2022), human-computer interaction (Yang et al, 2022), flow experience and time pressure (Dong et al, 2023), information transparency (Xu et al, 2022), livestreaming interactions (Liu et al, 2022) and extending the elaboration likelihood model with herd behavior (Yang and Lee, 2023).…”

“…, 2023), information transparency (Xu et al. , 2022), livestreaming interactions (Liu et al. , 2022) and extending the elaboration likelihood model with herd behavior (Yang and Lee, 2023).…”

How Social Presence Influences Consumer Well-Being in Live Video Commerce: The Mediating Role of Shopping Enjoyment and the Moderating Role of Familiarity

“…With the emergence and rise of interactive social media, the traditional marketing mode has changed from one-way communication to interactive (i.e., two-way) communication. Live broadcast, as a type of social media with high real-time and high interactivity, combines the broadcast of activities with the real-time communication of cross-mode video media, providing consumers with an interactive, attractive, user-centered synchronous environment and realizing real-time interaction between consumers and streaming media (electronic suppliers) as well as between consumers [27,28]. In the online shopping scenario, consumers will be stimulated by social environment cues such as text, emoticons, sounds, and videos in the process of interacting with salespeople, other consumers, and website systems, and they will feel warm, forming a social sensation similar to "being with others" in real life.…”