Title: The effect of loneliness on consumers' purchase intention during live stream shopping: an empirical study in China with large-scale samples

Authors: Rui Chen; Yanning Zhang; Yanghan Guo

Addresses: School of Management, Xiamen University, 422 South Siming Road, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China ' School of Management, Xiamen University, 422 South Siming Road, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China ' School of Management, Xiamen University, 422 South Siming Road, Xiamen, Fujian, 361005, China

Abstract: Influenced by the pandemic in 2020, 'in-home restrictions' promoted live stream shopping. As a new type of social e-commerce, live stream shopping has an increasingly important role in social interaction. Another significant feature of live stream shopping is the availability of price discounts. Based on the basic social and commercial attributes of live stream shopping, this study aims to investigate the effects of loneliness on perceived interaction, perceived price discount, and customers' purchase intention. This study conducted an online large-sample survey (n = 9,072) for data collection. The results show that loneliness positively influences customers' purchase intention. And streamer-viewer interaction, interactions among live stream room viewer members, and price discount perception play a mediating role in loneliness and purchase intention. This study has implications for the live stream shopping industry. It helps business managers to focus on consumer psychology and social interaction factors better.

Keywords: loneliness; live streaming shopping; attachment; network social interaction; materialism; purchase intention; perceived streamer interaction; perceived viewer interaction; perceived price discount; SOR.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMC.2024.139307

International Journal of Mobile Communications, 2024 Vol.24 No.1, pp.82 - 102

Received: 08 Sep 2021
Accepted: 18 Dec 2022
Published online: 01 Jul 2024 *

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