Online consumers build trust with online merchants through real-time interaction function

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph; line-height: normal; mso-pagination: none; margin: 12.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif;">Given the rapid development of live streaming commerce in China, this study focuses on the interactivity and sociability of live streaming shopping activities and explores online consumers’ real-time interaction intentions and trust-building behaviours with online merchants. To discover the real-time interaction between online consumers and online merchants, this study builds a research model based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). Through the data analysis based on the partial least squares path modelling and variance-based structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM), the key findings state that, three factors, including attitude, subject norm, and perceived control, positively affect online consumers’ real-time interaction intentions and lead them to build trust with online merchants. Meanwhile, control variables, including gender, age, and educational background, demonstrate insignificant effects across the model. Unlike existing literature, the current study pays much attention to the interactive characteristics of live streaming shopping activities and can provide some valuable suggestions both for online consumers and online merchants, which can promote the co-development of the commercial and social aspects of live streaming platforms.</span></p>