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Despite the burgeoning popularity of virtual gifting in live streaming, research lacks an in-depth understanding of the drivers behind this behavior. Using para-social relationship (PSR), this study aims to capture viewers’ lively social feelings toward the streamer as the key factor leading to the purchase behavior of virtual gifts. It also aims to establish a theoretical link between PSR and viewers’ holistic experience in live streaming as captured by cognitive absorption and aims to investigates the role of technological features (i.e. viewer–streamer and viewer–viewer interactivity, streamer-level and viewer-level deep profiling and design aesthetics) in shaping viewers’ experience.

Based on 433 survey responses, this study employs a combination of structural equation modeling and neural networks to offer valuable insights into the relationships between the technological environment, viewer experience and viewer behavior.

Our results highlight the salience of PSR in promoting the purchase of virtual gifts through cognitive absorption and the importance of the technological environment in eliciting the viewer experience. This study sheds light on the development of PSR in a technological environment and its relationship with cognitive absorption.

By applying PSR to conceptualize viewers’ perceived connection with the streamer, this study extends the research on purchase behavior in the non-shopping context by providing an enlightened understanding of virtual gift purchase behavior in live streaming. Moreover, by theoretically linking PSR with cognitive absorption, virtual gift purchase and technological features of live streaming, it enriches the theory of PSR and bridges the gap between the design practice of supporting the IT infrastructure of live streaming and research.

Although user stickiness has been studied for several years in the field of live e-commerce, little attention has been paid to the effects of streamer attributes on user stickiness in this field. Rooted in the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) theory, this study investigated how streamer attributes influence user stickiness.

The authors obtained 496 valid samples from Chinese live e-commerce users and explored the formation of user stickiness using partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Artificial neural network (ANN) was used to capture linear and non-linear relationships and analyze the normalized importance ranking of significant variables, supplementing the PLS-SEM results.

The authors found that attractiveness and similarity positively impacted parasocial interaction (PSI). Expertise and trustworthiness positively impacted perceived information quality. Moreover, streamer-brand preference mediated the relationship between PSI and user stickiness, as well as the relationship between perceived information quality and user stickiness. Compared to PLS-SEM, the predictive ability of ANN was more robust. Further, the results of PLS-SEM and ANN both showed that attractiveness was the strongest predictor of user stickiness.

This study explained how streamer attributes affect user stickiness and provided a reference value for future research on user behavior in live e-commerce. The exploration of the linear and non-linear relationships between variables based on ANN supplements existing research. Moreover, the results of this study have implications for practitioners on how to improve user stickiness and contribute to the development of the livestreaming industry.

This study aimed to understand better what makes esports fans engage with streamers' live-streaming of esports gameplay. This study used the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and additionally adopted streamer identification and esports game identification as moderating variables.

Data were collected from streamers' esports content streaming viewers over 18 years of age using an online survey in Amazon M-Turk (N = 307). Based on past esports live-streaming weekly watching hours, which range from 1 to 45 h, the participants were divided into lower (n = 152) and higher (n = 155) frequency groups. PLS-SEM and bootstrapping techniques were used to test the moderated mediation relationships among the constructs.

This study found a negative moderating effect of past watching experience on the relationship between attitudes and behavioral intention, and it positively moderated the path between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention. Also, it was found statistically significant direct impacts of streamer identification (STI) and esports game identification (EGI) on attitude and subjective norms. While the indirect impact of STI on behavioral intention through attitude was statistically significant, there were no significant indirect impacts of EGI on attitude and behavioral intention through subjective norms.

Theoretically, this study extends the TPB model by exploring the two identifications (i.e. streamers and esports games) as antecedents of the focal TPB factors (i.e. attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) and the moderating effect of prior experience based on high/low weekly watching frequencies. Practically, content creators of esports live-streaming and live-streaming platform managers can use the study’s findings to develop strategies to nurture their current and future viewership.

This study examines the relationship between streamers' product descriptions, customer comments and online sales and focuses on the moderating effect of streamer–viewer relationship strength.

Between June 2021 and April 2022, the structured data of 965 livestreaming and unstructured text data of 42,956,147 characters from two major live-streaming platforms were collected for the study. Text analysis and regression analysis methods were employed for data analysis.

First, the authors' analysis reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between comment length and product sales. Notably, comment volume and comment emotion positively influence product sales. Furthermore, the semantic richness, emotion and readability of streamers' product descriptions also positively influence product sales. Secondly, the authors find that the strength of streamer–viewer relationship weakens the positive effects of comment volume and comment emotion without moderating the inverted U-shaped effect of comment length. Lastly, the strength of streamer–viewer relationship also diminishes the positive effects of emotion, semantics and readability of streamers' product descriptions on product sales.

This study is the first to concurrently examine the direct and interactive effects of user-generated content (UGC) and marketer-generated content (MGC) on consumer purchase behaviors in livestreaming e-commerce, offering a novel perspective on individual decision-making and cue utilization in the social retail context.

This study aims to explore the determinants of viewers’ gifting and social sharing behaviours in online streaming from a dual-attachment perspective and to explain how live streaming fosters attachment through a social interaction aspect.

This study conducted an online survey with 316 valid responses to test the research model. The structural equation modelling approach was applied to assess both the measurement and structural models.

The results show that both bond-based and identity-based attachments promote gifting and social sharing behaviours. Participation and cognitive communion motivate viewers to establish bond-based attachment, while group interaction among viewer crowds encourages viewers to create identity-based attachment. In addition, group interaction can moderate the relationship between participation and bond-based attachment.

This study is one of the earliest attempts to highlight the significance of viewer crowd and viewer-viewer interaction in promoting viewers’ behaviours in live streaming context. This study also indicates that viewer-viewer interaction can moderate the impact of viewer–streamer interaction, which is among the first to investigate the interaction effects of viewer-viewer interaction and viewer–streamer interaction.

With the development of social media, live-streaming has become an indispensable marketing activity for firms, especially in China. From the initial cooperation with the influencer, firms begin to create their own live-streaming channel, namely, the brands' self-built live-streaming. The purpose of this study is to explore the process of consumer engagement in the brands' self-built live-streaming.

This research comprises two experimental studies. Study 1 examined the effect of streamer types (CEO vs. celebrity) on consumer engagement. Study 2 investigated the moderating effects of product innovativeness.

Results showed that CEO streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' cognitive trust, and celebrity streamers could enhance consumer engagement by increasing consumers' emotional trust. In addition, consumer engagement was higher for really new products (vs. incremental new products) in CEO streamers' (vs. celebrity streamers') live-streaming.

Compared with previous studies that focused on streamers based on the influencer marketing, this study expands the scope of research on the live-streaming ecosystem by exploring the effect of different streamer types on the brands' self-built live-streaming. By investigating consumer engagement, this study gives implications for the sustainable traffic issue in live-streaming e-commerce.

The boom in live streaming has intensified competition among streamers for viewers' gifts, which makes it meaningful to study the factors that affect the viewers’ gifting behavior. Given the emotional attachment between streamers and viewers, the authors set out to elucidate a new driver on viewer gifting: expressions of the streamer. This research aims to explore the impact of streamer emotions on the viewer gifting behaviors, including free and paid gifting. The loyalty level of the viewers is also introduced as a moderating factor to investigate the heterogeneous effect of streamer emotions on gifting behavior.

The dataset the authors collected consists of two parts, including 1809.69 h of live streaming videos and 358,002 gift giving records. Combined with deep learning methods and regression analysis, the authors performed empirical tests on the 81,110 valid samples. Several robustness checks were also conducted to ensure the reliability of main results.

The empirical results show that streamer emotions do have effects on viewers' free and paid gifting behavior. The authors’ findings show that positive streamer expressions, such as happiness and surprise, have a positive influence on viewer gifting behavior. However, some negative expressions, like sadness, can also have a positive impact. Moreover, the authors discovered that higher viewer loyalty amplifies the positive effect of streamer emotions and reduces the negative effect.

This research contributes to the study about streamer emotions and viewers' consumption behavior, which extends the application of emotion as social information model (EASI model) in the live streaming setting. The authors carefully divide the gifting behavior into two types: free and paid, and study how these two types are affected by streamer emotions. Besides, these effects are analyzed within viewers of different loyalty levels. This study offers practical emotion management strategies for streamers and live streaming platforms to gain more economic profits.

This study aims to understand how different levels of streamer channels influence luxury brand sales in live streaming commerce. This study also seeks to understand the conditions under which luxury brands may benefit more from different level streamer channels.

Panel data were collected from 17 international luxury brands on the Douyin live streaming platform in an 18 week period from August to December 2020 and analyzed by using a two-way fixed effects model.

The authors compared different mega-, macro- and micro-streamer channels within live streaming commerce and found that the densities of mega- and macro-streamer channels had significant positive impacts on luxury brand sales in live streaming commerce. Moreover, the effects of the density of streamer channel on luxury brand sales were moderated by such variables as product line breadth, product line depth, product type (star/non-star) and product price (high/low). The authors found that product line breadth and depth could reduce the positive impact of the densities of mega- and macro-streamer channels on luxury brand sales. For star products and high-priced products, the relationship between the density of mega-streamer channel and luxury brand sales was more likely to be observed than for non-star products and low-priced products. The relationship between the density of macro-streamer channel and luxury brand sales was more likely to be observed in low-priced products than in high-priced products.

The findings make important contributions to the literature in that the authors expand the influencer-brand fit theory by proposing a new model of effects of the densities of mega-, macro- and micro-streamer channels on sales performance across different luxury products to improve our understanding of the fit among influencers, brands and products. This helps luxury brands make basic decisions of “who sells” and “sells what” when engaging in live streaming commerce.

This article seeks to understand how live-streaming technology (i.e. interactivity and effective use of live-streaming shopping’s information presentation tool) impacts consumers’ credibility perception regarding live streamers.

The authors empirically examined their hypotheses with data (n = 405) collected from a survey of consumers who engage in live-streaming shopping.

The results demonstrate that vicarious learning strategies (both coactive and independent) can shape consumers’ benefit perceptions (i.e. virtual presence and psychological proximity), and further have a positive effect on consumers’ personal value (i.e. perceived live streamer credibility). Furthermore, the consumers’ perception of the live streamers’ credibility positively affects their purchase intention and ultimately influences their purchase behavior.

Building on the vicarious learning theory and means-end chain (MEC) model, this study investigates the mechanism of the IT features of live-streaming shopping in reducing consumers’ uncertainty about live streamers. This study reveals the value of vicarious learning experiences in reducing consumers’ uncertainty and further enhancing their purchase behavior.

This study aims to investigate the factors driving viewers' purchase intention in live-streaming by incorporating stimuli–organism–response (S–O–R) framework and extroversion–introversion personality perspectives.

Data collected from 228 users on live-streaming platforms in Taiwan were used to test the proposed model. The partial least squares method was used to test the measurement and the structural models.

Product attractiveness and trust in streamer significantly impacts purchase intention. The results also reveal that interactivity, breadth of information and uniqueness of information significantly impact product attractiveness, whereas social presence, breadth of information and uniqueness of information positively affect trust in streamer. Furthermore, streamer attractiveness has a greater effect on the purchase intention of extroverts.

This study investigates how the features of media, message and streamer impact purchase intention through their reactions to live-streaming. This research is also one of the earliest studies to examine the moderating role of extroversion–introversion personality on purchase intention and its antecedents in live-streaming commerce.