Abstract
°In the realm of online shopping, consumers often face challenges in physically interacting with, testing, or experiencing products prior to making purchase decisions. Despite online retailers' attempts to utilize images or short videos to provide more product informations, consumers continue to struggle with uncertainties and perceived risks associated with product acquisition. With the development of information technology, online merchants have embraced the practice of employing live streaming as a strategic tool to showcase their products, which involves presenting products to audiences through real-time internet broadcasts. Live streaming empowers consumers to gain deeper insights into products by virtually experiencing hosts' descriptions, appearances, or other products’ attributes. So, feeling the importance of live streaming, various e-commerce platforms such as Taobao, Tmall, JD.com, Douyin, and Amazon have integrated live streaming functionalities into their offerings. An increasing number of merchants are selling products by e-commerce live streaming, which has led to a rapid development of the live commerce sector and also make a great contribution to the promotion of the rapid growth of sales in this sector. Nowadays, e-commerce live streaming has become a prevailing and influential mode of online shopping.Merchants utilize live streaming to present products, while consumers also engage in it to gain insights into the attributes and features of the product. Drawing inspiration from existing researches, for consumers, introducing products in the live broadcast room by streamer, who is the host of a live broadcast room, is an online trial of the product, and this product trial is completed through the anchor's substitution. Recognizing the popularity of product trials in e-commerce live streaming and addressing some research gaps, particularly the absence of a directly corresponding concept in English literature, this study employs a combined approach of field experiments and laboratory experiments to examine the impact of different product trial methods during live streaming on consumers' purchase intentions. In existing research, product types are divided into search products and experiential products. Therefore, this article will combine the classification research of product types and employ laboratory experiments methods to test the impact mechanism of product types on consumer purchase intention under different product trial methods in live streaming.
The theoretical framework of this study is based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory, incorporating theories such as vicarious learning, to construct a moderation and mediation model within the context of e-commerce live streaming. This model takes product trial types (no trial, streamer trial, and background trial) as independent variables, vicarious learning as a mediating variable, product type (search products and experiential products) as a moderating variable, and purchase intention as the dependent variable. Simultaneously, based on the mediation effects within this theoretical framework, this study proposes hypotheses: streamer trial positively influences vicarious learning (Hypothesis 1), background trial positively influences vicarious learning (Hypothesis 2), vicarious learning positively influences consumer purchase intention (Hypothesis 3); vicarious learning mediates the effect of product trial types on consumer purchase intention (Hypothesis 4); compared to live streaming without product trials, live streaming with background trial (Hypothesis 5) and live streaming with streamer trial (Hypothesis 6) both have higher consumer purchase intentions; compared to live streaming with background trial, live streaming with streamer trial have higher consumer purchase intentions (Hypothesis 7); based on the moderation effects, it is proposed that within experiential products, compared to live streaming without product trials, live streaming with background trial (Hypothesis 8) and live streaming with streamer trial (Hypothesis 9) exert a stronger positive influence on consumer purchase intentions than that in search products, º and furthermore, compared to live streaming with background trials, live streaming with streamer trials exhibit a higher positive impact on consumer purchase intentions than that in search products (Hypothesis 10).
Based on this theoretical framework and the primary research methodology of experiments, two experiments were designed in this study. Experiment 1, conducted on the Tmall live streaming platform, utilized a field experiment to examine the impact of trial types on consumers. The conclusion drawn from this experiment indicates that in terms of sales volume as the dependent variable, live streaming with streamer trial exhibited the best performance, followed by those with background trial, and lastly, streamer without trials. Therefore, Experiment 1 validated Hypotheses 5, 6, and 7. In addition, Experiment 2 was conducted as a laboratory experiment using the platform QuestionStar. Based on the results obtained from the questionnaire survey in Experiment 2, Experiment 2 once again confirmed the validation of Hypotheses 5, 6, and 7.
The conclusions drawn from Experiment 2 indicate that within the context of experiential products, compared to live streaming without product trials, both background trial and streamer trial live streaming exhibit a higher positive influence on consumer purchase intentions than that in the case of search products. Therefore, this validates Hypotheses 8 and 9. Furthermore, this experiment also conducted a variance analysis of the interaction between product type and product trial type. The results revealed that product type has a significant moderating effect. Based on the moderation mediation analysis results using the PROCESS Model 7, the moderation mediation model demonstrated significance. This confirms the mediating role of vicarious learning in the relationship between product trial types and consumer purchase intentions, thereby validating Hypotheses 1, 2, 3, and 4.
In terms of theoretical contributions, this study employs a combined approach of field experiments and laboratory experiments. From the perspective of product trial, this research examines the effects of background trial, streamer trial, and no trial factors on consumer purchase intentions through the mediating factor of vicarious learning. This approach addresses the gaps in previous literature by investigating the influence of product trial types. Furthermore, this study extends the scope of product types within the context of e-commerce live streaming, explaining the moderating effects of different product types and enriching the research on mediating factors related to product types in the field of e-commerce live streaming. In terms of marketing and managerial implications, the research findings suggest that the potential for enhancing consumer purchase intentions in e-commerce live streaming by incorporating background trials or streamer trials in the live broadcast room. Additionally, in the comparison of experiential and search product categories in e-commerce live streaming, compared to live streaming without trial, there is a demonstrated importance in focusing on the application of background trials and streamer trials. These insights contribute to advancing our theoretical understanding and practical application of the rapidly evolving field of e-commerce live streaming.
| Date of Award | 28 Nov 2023 |
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| Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Lihua Huang (External Supervisor) & Jingjun David XU (Supervisor) |