The Impact of Live Streaming E-commerce Features on Chinese Consumers\u27 Attitude and Purchase Intention

In recent years, live streaming e-commerce has been gaining popularity among Chinese consumers as a new social trend. Compared to traditional e-commerce, the shopping model of live streaming service plus e-commerce demonstrates some benefits of social media features, encouraging consumers to engage in live shopping. This study aims to predict how different live streaming e-commerce features (visibility, interactivity, price discount, and celebrity endorsement) influence Chinese consumers\u27 attitude and purchase intentions. It also examines how TPB components (subjective norm, perceived behavior control, and attitudes) can affect Chinese consumers\u27 purchase intention using a theoretical model combined with the TPB model and the S-O-R model. To achieve this goal, I collected 1239 valid questionnaires using the questionnaire method to explore the influence of correlation between these variables. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is conducted to validate each theoretical concept\u27s reliability and construct validity. The results of hierarchical linear regression indicate that all live e-commerce features positively correlate with consumers\u27 attitudes towards brands and platform use. Among them, price discount significantly impacted consumers\u27 attitudes towards platform use, while visibility, interactivity, and celebrity endorsement significantly impact on consumers\u27 attitudes towards brands. The results also showed that all TPB components positively correlated with consumer purchase intention. Consumers\u27 attitudes towards platform use had a stronger impact on consumers\u27 purchase intentions than the attitude towards brands

Interactive Social Selling and Relationship Management on WeChat

The thesis examined the phenomenon of micro-entrepreneurship, social selling and relationship management on WeChat. I used autoethnography as my research methodology, and the findings contribute to academic area on social selling, micro-entrepreneurship, social marketing, relationship management, and strategic communication. This paper also explored how WeChat users conduct their management strategies and relationship marketing in the common Chinese culture background. Findings revealed that WeChat is an ideal social selling and marketing approach for Chinese individual sellers to accomplish their business goal

What Encourages Purchase of Virtual Gifts in Live Streaming: Cognitive Absorption, Social Experience and Technological Environment

Live streaming has become extraordinarily popular worldwide. As a new form of social media, live streaming enables two levels of real-time interactions (i.e., between viewers and the streamer, and among viewers) and is monetized in a new way-viewers’ purchase of virtual gifts. The new monetization model has achieved a great success, yet there is a lack of understanding about what encourages viewers to purchase virtual gifts in live streaming. To explain such purchase behavior, this study develops a model which investigates the roles of viewers’ holistic experience with the system (i.e., cognitive absorption) and their social experiences (i.e., para-social interaction and virtual crowd experience), as well as how these experiences are developed within the technological environment of live streaming (i.e., interactivity, deep profiling and design aesthetics). The model was validated by using survey data collected from China. We also discuss implications for research and practice emerging out of this study

Predicting uptake of online customer service through mobile instant messaging applications : the effects of social presence on behaviour intention

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Marketing Research e CRMOnline shopping is rapidly increasing, creating new opportunities and challenges in the highly-competitive services market. In this context, companies are trying to come with new ways of connecting, as consumers seek easier and faster ways of interacting. This study employs the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology 2 (UTAUT2) as the theoretical paradigm and extends it, to explore the key factors influencing the uptake of mobile instant messaging applications in online customer service, by introducing social presence as a crucial construct. The data was collected from an online questionnaire conducted to 222 Portuguese mobile instant messenger’s users. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to verify and validate the research model. The results showed that performance expectancy represents the greatest influence on users’ intention to engage in online customer service through mobile instant messaging. In addition, social presence was found to directly impact behavioural intention and indirectly, through the mediation of performance expectancy and habit. This study fills the gap in the literature, where little attention has been devoted to examining the use of mobile instant messaging applications by organizations for online customer service. The findings will help practitioners make appropriate strategies for this new channel

Emotional Synchrony and Viewers’ Consumption: Evidence from Live Streaming of Virtual Idols

Live streaming has become increasingly popular in recent years for users to broadcast live events or experiences to an online audience in real-time. With the prevalence of the metaverse, virtual idols appear on the stage of live streaming. Unlike real human streamers, virtual idols are computer-generated avatars whose appearance does not exist in the physical world. Though existing literature has documented the effect of emotional displays of human streamers on viewers’ behavior, whether emotional displays of avatar streamers affect viewers’ behavior, especially viewers’ consumption behavior has not yet been explored. To fill this gap, we focus on the live streaming of virtual idols and conduct deep learning approaches to investigate the emotional synchrony between avatar streamers and their viewers based on moment-to-moment data. Our analysis of large-scale video data shows that the larger the discrepancy between the streamers’ acoustic- and text- emotions, the more likely the viewers will pay. This study sheds light on how avatars can be designed to leverage emotion to engage viewers in more consumption

Essays on Supply Chain Optimization: Operational Decisions With Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation and Live-streaming Channel Introduction

In this dissertation, we study a supplier\u27s operational decisions for supply chain optimization considering corporate social responsibility implementation and live- streaming channel introduction. Both essays start from analytical models that are inspired by observations, and we explore how different parameters affect the supplier\u27s decisions through extensive numerical studies. In the first essay, we notice that cost auditing is becoming an increasingly important tool to improve supply chain efficiency and mitigate the influence of information asymmetry. We study how cost auditing indirectly influences retailer and supplier\u27s behavior in social responsibility. We also discuss the potential negative social responsibility externalities of conducting an audit and the managerial insights. Finally, we find that customers\u27 attitude towards different products changes retailer and supplier\u27s social responsibility preference. In the second essay, we are interested in a new trend where suppliers today adopt live-streaming channels for online shopping. We analyze the trade-off between potential market demand and channel competition by introducing live-streaming channel and discuss the impact of live-streaming channel on supply chain optimization. As a result, both essays shed light on how suppliers respond to downstream companies\u27 operational decisions

The Power of Live Stream Commerce: A Case Study of How Live Stream Commerce Can Be Utilised in the Traditional British Retailing Sector

As e-commerce continues to grow on a rapid scale, the rise of new technological innovations has come about, such as that of live stream commerce, which has risen rapidly throughout China through the successful case of Taobao Live. Therefore, this research project is focused on live stream retailing as an e-commerce innovation to understand how the key aspects, such as usability, functionality, interaction, and, in general, how its success can be transferred into Western society. A mixed methods approach is taken to collect the crucial data that are needed to understand the current behaviours of British consumers and to understand their preferred methods of shopping and why. This study presents robust recommendations from the collected data, providing strategic insight into the adoption of live stream retailing in the West and incorporating the development of a live stream commerce plug-in prototype that has the potential to be transferred compatibility into any business model

Enhancing Western E-commerce Expansion in China: Navigating Technical and Cultural Challenges through Effective Web Design

This master's dissertation explores the strategic use of website design to overcome challenges associated with Western e-commerce expansion into China. It investigates two primary dimensions: technical and cultural adaptation. Many Western e-commerce platforms have struggled in China due to inadequate adaptations to local market expectations. The research aims to provide valuable insights and practical guidance for Western e-commerce businesses aspiring to succeed in the Chinese market. It focuses on website design because of the crucial role it plays as a main tool for E-commerce companies to successfully reach its clients. At the same time, the research bridges a gap in the existing literature, which have predominantly focused on macro-level market strategies and regulatory considerations. The central research question driving this investigation is: to what extent does the alignment of website design with local cultural and technical contexts affect the success of Western e-commerce businesses in China? Employing a qualitative method of content analysis, the study evaluates 24 Western E-commerce companies based on a complementary cultural framework drawn from Hofstede’s (1980) and Schwartz’s (1992). To see the impact of the prominent depiction of local cultural and technical dimensions on the website performance metrics (traffic, pages viewed per visit, visit duration and bounce rate) a composite variable called ‘‘adaptation score’’ was calculated for each 24 Western E-commerce’s American websites and their overseas Chinese counterpart. Statistical analysis using IBM SPSS software reveals significant differences in the portrayal of Hierarchy and Harmony cultural dimensions through independent samples t-tests. Moreover, MANOVA confirms a significant association between adaptation levels and E-commerce website traffic and pages viewed per visit, offering empirical support for the significance of aligning the website design with the cultural and technical context of the target country

The State of Fashion 2021

En este informe se profundiza en los principales temas que afectan a la economía de la moda y evalúa una variedad de posibles respuestas. Reflejando conversaciones con los líderes de la industria durante los últimos meses, examina las diez tendencias clave que probablemente darán forma al negocio durante el próximo año. Además, se presenta el índice global de moda que revela nuevos conocimientos sobre el desempeño de la empresa por categoría, segmento y región

The Tethered Economy

Imagine a future in which every purchase decision is as complex as choosing a mobile phone. What will ongoing service cost? Is it compatible with other devices you use? Can you move data and applications across de- vices? Can you switch providers? These are just some of the questions one must consider when a product is “tethered” or persistently linked to the seller. The Internet of Things, but more broadly, consumer products with embedded software, are already tethered. While tethered products bring the benefits of connection, they also carry its pathologies. As sellers blend hardware and software—as well as product and service—tethers yoke the consumer to a continuous post-transaction rela- tionship with the seller. The consequences of that dynamic will be felt both at the level of individual consumer harms and on the scale of broader, economy- wide effects. These consumer and market-level harms, while distinct, reinforce and amplify one another in troubling ways. Seller contracts have long sought to shape consumers’ legal rights. But in a tethered environment, these rights may become nonexistent as legal processes are replaced with automated technological enforcement. In such an environment, the consumer-seller relationship becomes extractive, more akin to consumers captive in an amusement park than to a competitive marketplace in which many sellers strive to offer the best product for the lowest price. At the highest level, consumer protection law is concerned with promot- ing functioning free markets and insulating consumers from harms stemming from information asymmetries. We conclude by exploring legal options to re- duce the pathologies of the tethered economy