Live Streaming Commerce: Uses and Gratifications Approach to Understanding Consumers’ Motivations

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In this paper, we introduce live streaming commerce– e-commerce integrated with real-time social interaction via live streams. Using a uses and gratifications framework, we identified four motivations (enjoyment of interaction, substitutability of personal examination, need for community, and trend setting) related to live streaming commerce, and explored relationships between motivations and behavioral intentions in three different scenarios: general watching scenario, product search scenario, and internet celebrity scenario. Results showed that substitutability of personal examination was associated with the general watching scenario and product search scenario, while enjoyment of interaction was associated with the internet celebrity scenario. Trend setting was associated with all scenarios but need for community was insignificant with all scenarios. Design implications based on results are discussed for future live streaming commerce system development.