The Influence of Secret Consumption, Interactivity, Emotion, and Intimacy on Consumers’ Brand Loyalty in Live Streaming Commerce

Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, live streaming shopping emerged as a prevalent consumer choice among residents in Hangzhou, China. This study focuses on exploring the impacts of consumer perceived privacy, platform interactivity, emotional intimacy, and touching emotion on consumer brand loyalty in the context of online live streaming commerce in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. Essentially, beyond realising direct consumer interaction, the core goal of e-commerce live streaming is to enhance consumers’ recognition of live streaming brands and further consolidate their brand loyalty. In this research, structural equation modelling (SEM) was adopted to construct and verify the hypothetical research framework, and online questionnaires were utilised for data collection and empirical investigation. The empirical results demonstrate that live streaming interactivity and touching emotion significantly and positively promote the formation of consumer emotional intimacy. The results reveal that secret consumption exerts a significant negative effect on intimacy. Moreover, enhanced emotional intimacy is further verified to exert a positive effect on consumer brand loyalty. This research clarifies the internal influencing mechanism of key perceptual factors on brand loyalty in live streaming scenarios. The findings of this study can provide empirical data and practical references for the high-quality development of China’s e-commerce live streaming industry.