LIVESTREAMING IS FUTURE
What is streaming? Live streaming is the delivery of video or audio data to an
audience over the Internet as the data is created and without first being recorded and
stored. The live streaming is different from other form of streamed media, such as video-on-
demand, vlogs, and YouTube videos. Live streaming covers a wide range of content
categories, including gaming, entertainment, educational content, fitness, business, and
more. This diversity attracts audiences with varied interests and preferences.
Today, the live streaming has been a rapidly growing trend, and it continues to be a
significant part of digital content consumption. The demand for live-streaming services has
increased due to global social network service providers like Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube actively launching live-streaming services.The platforms for live streaming is
Facebook Live, TikTok, Instagram, Bilibili, Twitch and also Youtube(Ham, M., & Lee, S. W.,
2020). Live streaming enables direct communication between streamers and viewers and
aims to exploit interactivity among viewers.
In today’s world with the advancement of technology, system, applications and
Internet, live streaming has become prominent day by day. Businessmen and traders are
using live streaming as their marketing strategy in which it acts as a platform to increase
their sales and expose their brands to a wide range of customers all over the world (N. A. A.
Samat et al). According to a survey by Snapcart, 38% of Indonesian consumers have watched
live streams of e-commerce products, with most of them finding it helpful in their
purchasing decisions. Three largest e-commerce platforms in Indonesia: Tokopedia, Shopee,
and Lazada investing heavily in this technology to capture the attention of consumers. They
have reported an increase in the usage of live streaming features. The adoption of shopping
through live streaming feature has grown. Survey conducted by Snapcart showed that 37%
of respondents chose Shopee Live as their most preferred feature. The following positions
are Tokopedia Play 7% and 1% for LazLive (Widodo & Napitupulu, 2023). As the use of live
streaming in e-commerce continues to grow, it is important to understand its impact on the
industry.
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IMPACT OF LIVESTREAMING ON SHOPPING DECISION
The content of the live-stream itself can impact the decision of the viewers to
purchases product. The more interactive, informative and entertaining the livestream is, the
more immersion it can give to the viewers. Because of that, the immersed viewers have high
chance to buy the product promoted (Lv et al., 2022). It is the same with the research made
by Song and Liu (2021), the interactivity of the livestream have a positive effect in the
purchases intention of the viewers.
In live-stream platform, things that significantly affect the the shopping decision of
the social media user in not price, promotion, public image of live streamer and interaction,
but it’s the product individualization and platform loyalty that effect on purchase decision
(Wongsunopparat & Deng, 2021). Platform loyalty defines a live streaming E-commerce
platform as a platform with social a commerce property that integrates real-time social
interaction into E-commerce in the form of live streaming meanwhile product
individualization means that the product is unique and different from the other brand.
The next impact is the feeling of presence can effect the purchase intention in
livestream (Yin et al., 2023). There are two type of presence, which is physical and social
presence. Physical presence is the feeling of being somewhere and social presence is the
feeling of connection with others. A good content and charismatic influencers in the
livestream can give both of these feeling to the viewers and with that, it can effect the
viewers purchases intention.
Aside from positive impact, live-streaming also can have negative impact on
consumers shopping decision. Live-streaming can harm Some consumers who cannot
control their spending. Ozen and Engizek (2014) studied shopping online without thinking.
They found that impulsive buying tendencies have positive relationship with hedonic
shopping motivation. That paper shows that consumers tend to make an unplanned
shopping just for the enjoyment and pleasure.So, that tendency might be increased with the
influence of the streamer promoting a product. The consumers logical thinking already
affected with their impulsive buying tendencies, so adding the influence of streamer who
their whole career is talking and convincing the viewer, their might lead to having bad
shopping decision.
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Aside from that, The next impact is livestream can convince consumers to buy bad
quality product because misinformation and false advertising. Because its not face-to-face
interaction, the customer does not have enough information about the product promoted
by the streamer. So, they did not know if the product is good quality or not because the
streamer can easily hide the bad aspect of the product or the product they ship to the
customer is not the same as the product they promoted in live stream. The merchant can
conspire with the streamer to deceive the audience. One tactic they do is giving the
audience absurd discount and make the viewer think it is the special discount only for the
participant of the live-stream (Wang et al., 2022).
Para-social relationship between the streamer and the viewers also can impact
shopping decision. When promoting the product, giving a good and clear information can
attract customer to buying the product but the research of Xu et al. (2020) found that the
streamer attractiveness and para-social interaction significantly effect the viewers shopping
decision.
In conclusion, livestream can impact the shopping decision in positive and negative
way. For a impact in shopping decision in positive way, the viewer can feel special when
purchasing unique item, consuming a great content while online shopping. But it can also
give negative impact. Livestream can harm viewers with impulsive buying tendencies, victim
of false advertising and problematic para-social relationship between streamer and the
viewers. Businesses leveraging live streaming for e-commerce should be mindful of creating
engaging and immersive content while ensuring transparency, honesty, and the provision of
accurate product information. As live streaming continues to evolve, understanding and
addressing these impacts will be vital for the responsible and effective use of this medium in
the realm of e-commerce.
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REFERENCE
Ham, M., & Lee, S. W. (2020). Factors affecting the popularity of video content on live-
streaming services: focusing on V Live, the South Korean live-streaming
service. Sustainability, 12(5), 1784.
Lv, X., Zhang, R., Su, Y., & Yang, Y. (2022). Exploring how live streaming affects immediate
buying behavior and continuous watching intention: A multigroup analysis. Journal of Travel
& Tourism Marketing, 39(1), 109-135.
Ozen, H., & Engizek, N. (2014). Shopping online without thinking: being emotional or
rational?. Asia pacific journal of marketing and logistics, 26(1), 78-93.
Samat, N. A. A., Hashim, H., & Yunus, M. M. (2019). Live streaming: a new platform for ESL
learning. Creative Education, 10(12), 2899-2906
Song, C., & Liu, Y. L. (2021). The effect of live-streaming shopping on the consumer's
perceived risk and purchase intention in China.
Wang, Y., Lu, Z., Cao, P., Chu, J., Wang, H., & Wattenhofer, R. (2022). How live streaming
changes shopping decisions in E-commerce: A study of live streaming commerce. Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 31(4), 701-729.
Widodo, r. E., & Napitupulu, t. A. (2023). Exploring the impact of live streaming for e-
commerce business: A systematic literature. Journal of theoretical and applied information
technology, 101(16).
Wongsunopparat, S., & Deng, B. (2021). Factors Influencing Purchase Decision of Chinese
Consumer under Live Streaming E-Commerce Model. Journal of Small Business and
Entrepreneurship, 9(2), 1-15.
Xu, X., Wu, J. H., & Li, Q. (2020). What drives consumer shopping behavior in live streaming
commerce?. Journal of electronic commerce research, 21(3), 144-167.
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Yin, J., Huang, Y., & Ma, Z. (2023). Explore the Feeling of Presence and Purchase Intention in
Livestream Shopping: A Flow-Based Model. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic
Commerce Research, 18(1), 237-256.
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