Building platform trust for live stream commerce: the social-technical systems perspective

Abstract

Live streaming has become one of the effective ways sellers can generate sales using social media platforms. Through live streaming, streamers can demonstrate their products and interact with shoppers through live inquiries. Therefore, the technical capability to support product demonstration and customer interaction is essential in the live streaming commerce. Furthermore, stimulating the intention to purchase products during live-stream services is conducive to trust building. Using the social-technical systems perspective, this research investigates the combinative use of IT affordance capabilities and information quality of eWOM as the critical antecedents of platform trust, that subsequently affects purchase intention in the live-stream context. The findings are based on quantitative data from 205 Vietnamese online shoppers. The study highlights the joint effect of technological and social factors in enhancing consumers’ intent to purchase through cultivating institution-based trust. While technical aspects are critical to providing product information and improving viewer interaction, platform managers should pay more attention to the development of eWOM to facilitate trust building, which in turn helps to promote consumers’ positive behavior toward products traded in live streaming on their platforms.