Understanding Characteristics of Streamers on Consumers’ Impulse Buying Intention in Live Streaming

Abstract The characteristics of streamers in the live streaming commerce environment can influence consumers’ cognition, emotion, and behavior, thus stimulating their impulse buying. However, few studies consider the impact of streamer combined with flow experience and social presence on live streaming effect, and the differences in personal characteristics of consumers are also ignored. Therefore, based on the stimulus-organism-response ( SOR ) theory, this study constructs an influence mechanism conceptual framework of live streaming consumers’ impulse buying intention under the stimulation of streamer’s characteristics. Structural equation modeling was applied to 429 survey questionnaires to test our framework. Results indicate that both expertise and interactivity of streamers enhance customer flow experience and social presence. Furthermore, social presence improves customers’ flow experience significantly. Meanwhile, Streamers’ interactivity and expertise indirectly boost impulse buying intentions through improved flow experience and social presence, but attractiveness does not influence these results.