Influencing mechanisms of live streamer's language strategies on product sales

Xiangyang Ma, Jiawen Ren, Xianghui Khor, Ruina Wang, Tieshan Li and Xiaoping Lang

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2025, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: Live-streaming e-commerce has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Drawing on Hovland's persuasion theory and Aristotle's rhetorical theory, this study categorizes streamers' persuasive linguistic strategies into six types: rewards and exaggeration, rewards and logic, rewards and emotion, credibility and exaggeration, credibility and logic, and credibility and emotion. Through text analysis and statistical modeling, the results show that "rewards and exaggeration," and "credibility and exaggeration," positively influence sales, while "credibility and logic" has a negative impact on sales. The study further finds that customer engagement mediates the relationship between most linguistic strategies and sales, while electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) amplifies the influence of customer engagement on sales. This research enriches theoretical insights into persuasive language use in live-streaming e-commerce and provides practical recommendations for streamers aiming to optimize engagement and boost sales performance.

Keywords: Persuasive linguistic combinations; Customer engagement; Product sales (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698925000700
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:85:y:2025:i:c:s0969698925000700

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2025.104291

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().