Customer engagement and purchase intention in live-streaming digital marketing platforms

The lack of human and social cues and customer engagement impedes traditional e-commerce until the birth of social commerce. This study investigates how customer engagement in live-streaming digital marketing affects purchase intentions. The results of 1726 datasets from two e-commerce platforms suggest that customer engagement is significantly associated with followership and purchase intention in live-streaming digital marketing. Whiles price is a significant moderator, its effects become insignificant on their purchase intentions once consumers become followers. The results highlight the positive impacts of social elements, including likes, chats, visits, and exposure time in social commerce towards transactional (purchase) and non-transactional (followership) benefits. Finally, the paper introduces a new perception of measuring customer engagement in live-streaming digital marketing and calls for further research into this new paradigm of social commerce to promote business and service provisions even with the restrictions of COVID-19.