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Effects of streamer effort and popularity on livestream retailing performance: a mixed-method study

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Abstract

Livestreaming, as a new e-retail medium, empirically enhances performance. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for examining how livestreamers’ effort and popularity affect livestream product sales and virtual gifts through social interaction. This study employed a mixed-method approach with panel data from the Kuaishou platform. The data consisted of 47,661 livestream retailing activities by 947 livestreamers (Study 1), 445 questionnaires (Study 2), and 10 streamer interviews (Study 3). Our results indicated that streamer effort had a direct positive effect on livestream product sales, while streamer popularity had a direct positive effect on livestream virtual gifts. Furthermore, social interaction mediated the effects of streamers’ effort and popularity on livestream product sales and virtual gifts, respectively. Our results have strategic implications for practitioners when it comes to selecting and cultivating streamers for livestream campaigns.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights. The research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [number. 71831005 and number 72121001], the Natural Science Foundation of Shenzhen under Grant [number JCYJ20220531095216037], and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province under Grant [number 2023A1515012520].

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  1. School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150006, China

    Bo Lu & Guoxin Li

  2. School of Economics and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Jiaoju Ge

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Lu, B., Li, G. & Ge, J. Effects of streamer effort and popularity on livestream retailing performance: a mixed-method study. Electron Commer Res (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-023-09757-7

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