The More Engaged, the More Generous: Examining the Influence of Viewers’ Engagement on Their Gifting Behavior in Live Streaming Services

Social Live Streaming Services (SLSSs) is an emerging form of social media that facilitates real-time interaction between streamers and their viewers through video streaming. With its growing prevalence worldwide, a wealth of literature has investigated its unique features of IT affordances and para-social interactions between streamers and their viewers, leaving viewers’ inner development and adjustment of attitudes and actions during the watching remained largely unknown. This study empirically examined the effects of viewers’ previous active engagement on their subsequent purchase behavior in SLSSs from the perspective of self-perception and perceived sunk costs. Results show that both free gifts and Danmaku (i.e., real-time comments) length significantly induce the purchase of charged gifts and that there are significant gender discrepancies underlying these mental attribution processes

Online Customer Reviews as Driver of Customer Loyalty

Online Customer Reviews (OCRs) belong to the most important marketing tools for online retailers, and have a significant impact on customers’ final purchase decision. This article adds new perspective on the favorable consequences of customer feedback and sheds light on the purchasing behavior of the OCR senders. Based on the self-perception theory, we study if an increased level of customer engagement makes reviewing customers more loyal compared to their non-reviewing counterparts. By linking a unique set of actual transaction data from online fashion covering more than 2.9 million orders from 0.4 million individual customers with more than 0.5 million submitted OCRs, we use a difference-in-difference (DID) approach as the method of choice. The results show that reviewing customers have on average a significantly higher number of orders and purchased items – even when considering product returns. Therefore, we argue that OCRs as a marketing instrument are not only helpful towards gaining new – but also for retaining existing – customers. This is especially important for retailers in the competitive e-commerce context, as customer loyalty is seen as an economic necessity for profitability and long-term success