Live-streaming shopping: the impacts of para-social interaction and local presence on impulse buying through shopping value

Abstract

PurposeThis study examines factors influencing viewers' impulse buying intention in live streaming. The authors draw upon the value theory to theorize how the product (i.e., local presence) and para-social interaction (PSI) in live-streaming shopping improve customers' shopping values and how these values subsequently influence their urge to buy impulsively. In addition, the authors examine value differences in live-streaming shopping through gender differences and previous shopping experiences.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted in this study. Members with browsing or shopping experience of live-streaming shopping sites were invited. The structural equation model was used to conduct confirmative factor analysis (CFA) to assess the convergent validity (item loadings), internal consistency (reliability), discriminant validity, causality hypotheses, and mediating effects.FindingsUtilitarian value appears more important than hedonic value in influencing consumers' urge to buy impulsively. Moreover, PSI with the co-viewers is more influential than PSI with the streamer on utilitarian and hedonic values. Finally, gender differences and prior live-streaming shopping experience moderate the relationship between shopping values and the urge to buy impulsively.Originality/valueThe authors extend the concept of PSI from a celebrity (the streamer) to co-viewers and find that PSI with co-viewers is crucial to impulse buying in live streaming. Additionally, the authors’ finding reveals that consumers with individual differences may react differently to the same set of perceived values in determining the level of their impulse shopping intention.

The role of interoperability and inter-side benefits on merchants' e-wallet adoption: the case of Peruvian nanostores

“…Almost half of them mentioned that they are deterred from using these platforms because there are fairly frequent interruptions in the service provided by e-wallets. This is consistent with recent studies suggesting that application stability is a potential factor for a successful introduction of mobile payment systems in the retail sector (Fu and Hsu, 2023).…”

Revisiting perceived gratification, consumer attitudes and purchase impulses in cross-border e-commerce live streaming: a direct and indirect effects model

“…In other words, consumers will tend to watch live streams with a specific shopping goal in mind, and will make impulse purchases once they capture utilitarian information that fulfills their shopping needs. This opinion intersects with Leong et al (2023) and Fu and Hsu (2023) in that we both emphasize that utilitarian behaviors significantly outweigh hedonic behaviors for streaming buyers. Further, as with others (Chen et al, 2022a;Guo et al, 2021;Liu, 2022;Sun et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2020;Zhang et al, 2023), this research alludes to the positive relationship between live-streaming and purchase behavior.…”

“…However, Leong et al (2023) found that Cross-border e-commerce live streaming only utilitarian values significantly contributed to internal cognition and subsequently activated individual behavior, with hedonic values having a lower impact on streaming buyers. Fu and Hsu (2023) also suggest that utilitarian factors significantly outweigh hedonic factors on impulse purchases in a live streaming context, and that consumers are more inclined to pounce on utilitarian information rather than hedonistic pleasures when engaging in live streaming interactions. Based on the previous, the following direct and indirect effect hypotheses are currently proposed:…”

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

“…In the marketing context, Labrecque (2014) defined it as a virtual experience, as if the imaginary interaction between consumers and media personalities is a real interaction on the spot. This theory has been used in e-commerce research (Zheng et al, 2020) and has received attention in live e-commerce research (Fu and Hsu, 2023). In this study, PSI refers to the virtual social interaction perceived by users between themselves and the streamers through livestreaming platforms, that is, the audience's perception of interpersonal participation and intimate relationships with streamers.…”

“…The rapid development of live e-commerce has led to a change in the business model, which researchers have evaluated. The early studies, including purchase intention (Zhu et al ., 2022; Zhou and Tong, 2022; Fei et al ., 2021), impulse shopping (Dong et al ., 2023; Fu and Hsu, 2023), product sales (Wang et al ., 2023; Luo et al ., 2021), sales performance (Liu et al ., 2023a), customer engagement (Dang-Van et al ., 2023; Qin et al ., 2023; Kang et al ., 2021; Wongkitrungrueng and Assarut, 2020) and satisfaction (Ma, 2021; Chen, 2019) elucidated some aspects of consumer behavior.…”