How live stream shopping influences brand loyalty on Taobao Live: A perspective of parasocial interaction : the effects of affective commitment, real-time interactivity, visual complexity, live streamer type

Live stream shopping became popular in the last few years. Companies in China use it as a promotion tool to attract consumers’ attention through the live streamer attractiveness. This study aims to find consumers’ attitude to live streamer and brand under the influence of live streamer type, real-time interactivity, visual complexity, and affective commitment. This study also tries to explore the influence of live stream shopping on brand loyalty, and the mediating role of parasocial interaction. The effect of affective commitment is measured. A 2 (live streamer type: independent live streamer vs branded live streamer) x 2 (real-time interactivity: high vs low) x 2 (visual complexity: high vs low) factor between-subject experiment is used to study the effect of live streamer type, visual complexity and real-time interactivity. Results of this study showed that brand loyalty was significantly influenced by high real-time interactivity, affective commitment and independent live streamer. The findings of this study underline that live streamer has a powerful influence to enhance brand loyalty in live stream shopping.