Engaging Viewers in Ecommerce Live Streaming: Perspectives of the Broadcaster and Viewer

Background: ECommerce live streaming has enabled new forms of broadcaster-viewer interaction, where broadcasters engage viewers in real time to sell goods and services. It is therefore critical to discover strategies to maximize viewer engagement with broadcasters. Method: A mixed methods approach was applied. Five strategies emerged from our qualitative observation of three famous broadcasters: establishing a personal brand essence, maintaining personal brand consistency, creating message credibility, tapping on shared attitudes, and maximizing customer responsiveness. Based on a signaling theory perspective, we then hypothesized about the five strategies and constructed a survey to examine the effectiveness of these strategies. A total of 505 valid responses were received, and CB-SEM with AMOS was utilized to test the five hypotheses, with three hypotheses supported. Results: Our findings demonstrate that message credibility, shared attitudes, and customer responsiveness play critical roles in enhancing viewers’ engagement behaviors. Conclusion: Our mixed methods approach allows empirical exploration of effective engagement strategies and broadcaster-viewer interaction during eCommerce live streaming. This study thus contributes nascent knowledge to the live streaming literature, helping future research to develop possible theoretical perspectives. Our findings also provide actionable insights for broadcasters to enhance viewer engagement and boost sales