“Oh, My God, Buy It!” Investigating Impulse Buying Behavior in Live Streaming Commerce

Abstract

The rapid popularity of live streaming promotes the emergence of a new business model known as live streaming commerce. Due to high interactivity and rich-sensory stimuli, live streaming easily leads to consumers’ impulse buying. However, knowledge on impulse buying in live streaming commerce is considerably limited. Drawing on the social presence theory and cognitive-affective framework, our study proposes a theoretical framework with which to examine how live streaming affects consumers’ urge to buy impulsively. In an online survey, 267 valid responses were obtained. Results indicate that social presence of live streamer, social presence of other viewers and social presence of product positively influence affective intensity. Results also show that social presence of other viewers and social presence of product negatively influence perceived risk. Furthermore, this study proves that the urge to buy impulsively is driven by affective state (i.e., affective intensity) instead of cognitive state (i.e., perceived risk) in the live streaming commerce context. This study provides a deep understanding of the psychological mechanism underlining consumers’ impulse buying in live streaming commerce. The findings also offer suggestions for online retailers to enhance product sales.

Disclose statement

No potential competing interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, and the Research Funds of Renmin University of China [22XNH186].

Notes on contributors

Xiaoping Zhang

Xiaoping Zhang is a PhD candidate at the School of Information at Renmin University of China. Her research interest includes computer-human interaction and e-commerce. Her research has been published in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, and Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

Xusen Cheng

Xusen Cheng is a Professor at the School of Information at Renmin University of China. His research interest focuses on digital collaboration and e-commerce. His research has been appeared in MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Tourism Management, Decision Sciences, European Journal of Information Systems, amongst others.

Xiaowen Huang

Xiaowen Huang is a postgraduate student at the School of Information at Renmin University of China. Her research interest includes computer-human interaction, e-commerce and social media. Her research has also been presented in the leading conference such as Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences and International Conference on Electronic Commerce.