The Determinants of Purchase Intention on Agricultural Products via Public-Interest Live Streaming for Farmers during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In order to sell unmarketable products and alleviate farmers’ economic difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, public-interest livestreaming for farmers with the property of altruism has been emerging as a new way of mobile commerce and has attracted a huge amount of attention among Chinese consumers. In this paper, based on the theory of reasoned action, we intend to explore the influencing factors from the levels of the platform, product, and consumer that affect consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards agricultural products via public-interest livestreaming. We have collected 475 valid responses from Chinese consumers (especially from youth) who experienced the public-interest livestreaming for farmers and then constructed a structural equation model using the partial least-squares method. The results show that consumers’ attitudes towards agricultural products have a significant positive impact on their purchase intentions with respect to livestreaming. Perceived interactivity, perceived endorsement, product familiarity, subjective norms, altruistic value, and the livestream shopping experience all significantly positively affected consumers’ attitudes toward the agricultural products in the mobile livestreaming. Moreover, subjective norms can also directly impact consumers’ purchase intentions. We can see that the proposed influencing factors from the platform, product, and consumer levels provide a better explanation of the attitudes and purchase intentions, respectively. This paper aims to expand the empirical research on the purchase intentions of agricultural products and then to provide insights into the phenomenon of public-interest livestreaming during COVID-19, which can assist farmers in addressing the dilemma caused by the epidemic and promote rural economic development by mobile commerce. Additionally, the insights from this case study in China can also be extended to other countries where farmers have suffered from the impact of COVID-19.