Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 10;8(6):e09676.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e09676. eCollection 2022 Jun.

What drives Taobao live streaming commerce? The role of parasocial relationships, congruence and source credibility in Chinese consumers' purchase intentions

Affiliations

What drives Taobao live streaming commerce? The role of parasocial relationships, congruence and source credibility in Chinese consumers' purchase intentions

Warinrampai Rungruangjit. Heliyon. .

Abstract

The year 2021 is one of the most significant years for live streaming commerce, since numerous sectors and businesses have begun to sell their items in the form of live broadcast influence. Especially in China, Taobao live streaming often promotes an event by inviting internet celebrities to cooperate with brands to broadcast the products. For many brands, that is a very successful technique for increasing conversion rates. Researchers have lately grown interested in investigating the factors influencing the purchase decisions of Chinese consumers in the context of Taobao live streaming commerce with online celebrities. The present study is the first to theoretically combine three primarily literature-based disciplines, including source credibility, match-up hypothesis, and parasocial relationship theory, into a unified framework to bridge the research gaps. In this study, the quantitative method was employed through the use of partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The SmartPLS 3.0 software was applied to examine the proposed model. The data were obtained from 454 Chinese consumers who have ever purchased a cosmetic product from a famous internet celebrity on Taobao live streaming. The results indicated that the positive impact of a celebrity endorsers' perceived expertise was the powerful antecedent that affected purchase intentions, while celebrity endorsers' perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness had no significant effect. A good match-up between celebrity and product can improve the celebrity endorsers' perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise. Moreover, it was found that the celebrity endorsers' perceived expertise acted as a mediator of the relationship between celebrity-product congruence and purchase intentions. Finally, the findings showed that parasocial relationships have vital mediating effects on increasing purchase intentions.

Keywords: Congruence; Internet celebrity; Live streaming commerce; Parasocial relationships; Source credibility; Taobao.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Conceptual framework.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Results of R-Squared, path coefficient and standardized item loadings.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Results of structural model.

References

    1. Ajzen J. The theory of planned behavior. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 1991;50:179–211.
    1. Amos C., Holmes G., Strutton D. Exploring the relationship between celebrity endorser effects and advertising effectiveness. Int. J. Advert. 2008;27(2):209–234.
    1. Ang L., Dubelaar C. Asia Pac. Conf. Borderless Consumption; Sydney, Australia: 2006. Explain Celebrity Match-Up: Co-activation Theory of Dominant Support.
    1. Aparicio M., Costa C.J., Moises R. Gamification and reputation: key determinants of e-commerce usage and repurchase intention. Heliyon. 2021 1-14. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Atkin C., Block M. Effectiveness of celebrity endorsers. J. Advert. Res. 1983;23:57–61.

LinkOut - more resources