Understanding consumer impulse buying in live streaming commerce: a streamer communication style and consumer’s language literacy perspectives

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of streamers’ communication styles for e-commerce platforms and the role of consumer language literacy and mediated interaction in enhancing impulsive buying behavior in international marketing via social media e-commerce platforms. Design/methodology/approach This study employs four experimental scenarios to examine the influence of streamer communication styles on impulse buying behavior across different e-commerce platforms. This study was conducted with Chinese beauty brands targeting customers via TikTok Shop to promote their brands internationally. Data were collected through online surveys conducted after each experimental live-streaming session. Data analysis was conducted using CB-SEM. Findings The results indicate that task-oriented streamer communication on traditional e-commerce platforms significantly influences consumer impulse buying behavior, directly and indirectly, via mediated interaction when beauty brands do international marketing via social media e-commerce platforms. Meanwhile, social-oriented streamer communication significantly affects impulse buying behavior on such platforms. Consumer language literacy moderates the relationship between streamer communication style, e-commerce platform type and mediated interaction. Practical implications This study provides valuable insights for marketing managers aiming for international marketing to leverage live streaming marketing activities. It offers live streamers and e-retailers guidance on enhancing customer impulsive buying behavior. Originality/value Although prior research has looked at streamer communication styles and customer engagement in impulsive buying behavior, the influence of consumers’ language literacy, particularly in a second language, as a moderating factor and the role of mediating interaction as a mediator in the context of international marketing of the beauty sector is still unexplored. This study explicitly fills the gap in the global marketing environment of the beauty sector by examining the vital role of consumers’ language literacy and mediated interaction in impulsive buying behavior. It enriches the expanding body of studies on live-streaming e-commerce. From the methodological perspective, this study employed a novel experimental design to address the gap by examining how consumer language literacy moderates between streamer communication styles and impulse buying behavior while mediated interaction boosts the relationship as a mediator.