Research On The Influencing Factors Of Consumers’ Impulse Buying In Live Streaming Commerce

While constructing a new development pattern with the domestic grand cycle as the core unit and the internal and external double cycles interacting,traditional retail e-commerce has embraced live streaming as a powerful sales channel,thus promoting extensive consumption and realizing the grand cycle.Additionally,it is of great importance to enhance the effect of e-commerce sales and lead the new development of global e-commerce.In recent years,due to the development of Internet technology and the popularity of mobile terminals,live streaming has begun to take the world by storm and gradually come into the life of the public.Live streaming allows individuals to freely participate in the streamer room,provide virtual gifts to their favorite streamers,and purchase products recommended by the streamers.The means by which products and services are sold through live interaction,also known as live streaming commerce(LSC),has also become an essential marketing tool for enterprises.For example,under the influence of the "COVID-2019",the "national live" era has arrived,and the LSC market has reached an all-time high,with the size of China’s LSC market reaching 961 billion yuan in2020.As a common consumption phenomenon,offline impulse buying accounts for60% of consumers’ purchasing decisions,while online impulse buying is even more pronounced.Specifically,live commerce facilitates vivid presentation of products and enhanced real-time interaction between streamers and consumers,thereby increasing the likelihood that consumers will make impulse buying.Thus,the study of impulse buying in live commerce has significant practical relevance for accelerating the circulation of goods in the market and improving the marketing effectiveness of businesses.While academics have taken an interest in LSC and impulse buying in its context,theoretical research lags far behind the business practice and remains fragmented and unsystematized.Hence,this study integrates four elements,including streamer behavior,consumer perception,product attributes,and scene atmosphere,to explore consumers’ impulse buying in LSC.Through scenario experiments and questionnaires,live consumer data was collected and analyzed,and the following conclusions were drawn:(1)From the perspective of streamer behavior,streamer communication style and LSC platform type interactively with consumers’ impulse buying.In the case of the social-oriented communication style of the streamer,the entertainment content LSC platform leads to stronger impulse buying compared to the traditional ecommerce type;in the case of the task-oriented communication style of the streamer,the entertainment content LSC platform leads to lower impulse buying compared to the traditional e-commerce type.Whereas parasocial interaction plays a mediating role and consumer loneliness plays a moderating role among the above relationship.(2)From the perspective of consumer perceptions,the relative deprivation in LSC positively affects consumers’ impulse buying.Escape motivation,perceived self-efficacy,and ego depletion are synchronous and chain mediating roles between relative deprivation and impulse buying.There are three types of patterns that trigger consumers to make strong impulse buying,and the explanatory power of the pattern "high relative deprivation*high perceived self-efficacy*high ego depletion " is greater than the other two types.Among the three types of patterns that trigger consumers to make weak impulse buying,the pattern "high education level * low relative deprivation * low escape motivation * low perceived self-efficacy" has the greatest explanatory power.Stronger or weaker relative deprivation can trigger two paths of strong impulse buying behavior.The weak relative deprivation is a common factor in all three paths of weak impulse buying behavior,which should take into account the combined effect of its antecedent conditions.(3)From the perspective of product attributes,among the six main antecedents affecting cognitive product involvement,monetary product value,perceived product quality,perceived product scarcity,product design functionality,immediate feedback of product information,and perceived streamer product knowledge all have positive effects on cognitive product involvement in the two-stage of structural equation modeling-artificial neural network analysis.Among the six independent variables influencing affective product involvement,the monetary value of the product,perceived product quality,perceived product scarcity,immediate feedback of product information,and perceived streamer’s product knowledge had a positive effect on affective product involvement,but no effect of product design’s functionality on affective product involvement was found.Among the two main antecedents influencing consumers’ impulse buying intentions,both product perceived involvement and product emotional involvement had significant effects.Among the three main antecedents influencing consumers’ impulse buying behavior,cognitive product involvement,emotional product involvement,and impulse buying intention all have significant effects on impulse buying behavior.(4)From the perspective of context characteristics,there is a significant positive correlation between atmospheric cues and impulse buying intention in the LSC.Flow experience plays a partial mediating role in the above relationship,along with Zhongyong thinking plays a negative moderating role and moderates the partial mediating role of flow experience between atmospheric cues and impulse buying intention.In conclusion,based on the research perspective of "people-goods-context",this study systematically explores how to improve the consumers impulse buying in LSC,and analyzes more comprehensively the mechanism of impulse buying in different contexts(streamer communication style,consumers’ relative deprivation,product attributes,and scene atmosphere cues).The novelties of the study are mainly in the following aspects: First,it focuses on the influencing factors of LSC consumer’s impulse buying,which enriches the current research on the antecedents and deepens the understanding of LSC consumer’s impulse buying.Second,it expands the mechanism of the role of streamer,consumer,product,and scene factors on the LSC consumers impulse buying,and systematically portrays its formation path.Third,the moderating role of LSC consumers impulse buying is explored in terms of platform type and individual traits,and the boundary conditions of the effectiveness of LSC consumers impulse buying are revealed in-depth.Based on the proposed research model and related empirical results,strategic suggestions are made for live streaming platforms,streamers,and merchants to increase consumer impulse buying.Firstly,enriching the attractiveness of live streaming.Live content should be more lifelike and personalized,fully displaying streamer talent,skills,and unique resources,increasing the effectiveness of consumer use,improving the stickiness of fans and user experience,and strengthening the pleasure and immersion.Secondly,deepening the interaction with consumers.Live streaming platforms,streamers,and merchants should make full use of the sociality of the live streaming platform,determine the appropriate communication style in combination with the platform used,pay attention to the real-time interactive feedback,improve the quality of the streamer’s service,let consumers experience presence,and compensate for the lack of direct access to goods.Thirdly,paying attention to consumers’ traits.For consumers with different degrees of relative deprivation,differentiated segmentation is implemented,and reasonable business strategies are formulated according to the personalities and habits of consumers in the oriental cultural context,and marketing stories are told well.Fourth,determining effective marketing strategies.Through reasonable product selling prices and promotional means such as coupons,consumers may perceive that the products are worth the money.Meanwhile,through a compelling demonstration of product quality,consumers may trust the professionalism of the streamer.Fifth,creating engaging ambient leads.Live streaming platforms,streamers,and merchants should develop convenient and easy-to-control communication channels,clear layout,and concise links to create an atmosphere of product scarcity.In other words,using limited time and marketing techniques,drive customers to perceive that the products are helpful,practical,and enjoyable,therefore stimulating their buying impulse.