Social Media Live-Streaming Characteristic, Attitudes, Trust, and Purchase Intent: A Study of Sports Consumers Engaging in Live Shopping

Social media live-streaming is increasingly being utilized as a platform for shopping, with sports enterprises dedicating significant time, money, and resources to this endeavor. However, effectively leveraging social media live-streaming shopping characteristics to attract and motivate consumers to purchase sports products remains challenging for these enterprises. On that account, this research aimed to investigate key elements of social media live-streaming shopping characteristics that couled influence purchase intention. Employing the extended technology acceptance model (ETAM) as a theoretical model, this research explored how interactivity, entertainment, visualization, and professionalization of social media live-streaming shopping characteristics could impact attitudes, trust, and purchase intention. Data were gathered via a questionnaire survey involving 675 participants using the convenience sampling method. The primary findings of the structural equation model (SEM) largely affirmed the validity of the current model and underscored significant impacts of interactivity, entertainment, professionalization, visualization, attitudes, trust, and purchase intention. This study found that compared with other social media live-streaming characteristics (interactivity, visualization, and entertainment), professionalization had the greatest impact on attitude and trust. Results showed that attitudes largely affected consumers' purchasing intention. This study offers valuable management insights to platforms, sports enterprises, and streamers.