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Moderating effect of consumers’ opinion leader acceptance: Exploring the relationship between livestreaming shopping and online shopping safety satisfaction

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Abstract

The recent developments in forms of online shopping have been shaped by emerging information technologies, and the sources of online shopping safety have been accompanied by numerous changes. Based on the database of the 2022 Chinese Internet Safety Satisfaction Survey, this paper explored the relationship between consumers’ livestreaming shopping usage frequency and their online shopping safety satisfaction, then focusing on the moderating effect of consumers’ opinion leader acceptance, finally providing a further analysis based on the cultural theory of risk. The study finds that: (1) Consumers’ livestreaming shopping usage frequency positively affects consumers’ online shopping safety satisfaction. (2) Consumers’ opinion leader acceptance plays a significant positive moderating role in the relationship between consumers’ livestreaming shopping usage frequency and their online shopping safety satisfaction. (3) Based on the cultural theory of risk, the moderating effect of consumers’ opinion leader acceptance becomes stronger for consumers whose educational level is lower (technical school and junior college) or occupational status is less relevant to livestreaming shopping (non-employed by the livestreaming shopping industry such as students, doctors, jobless, etc.).

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Data availability and materials

The data used to support the findings of this study have been made available.

Notes

  1. https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=1777566398204668520&wfr=spider&for=pc

  2. https://www.sohu.com/a/722374974_116237

  3. https://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2022-09/01/content_5707695.htm

  4. https://www.iscn.org.cn/ (A more detailed description of the data sources is provided in the Appendix Section A.).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [number 72293583]. The authors would like to thank AE and the two anonymous reviewers for their patient advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Yi Yang

  2. School of Economics and Management, Hunan Institute of Traffic Engineering, Hengyang, 421200, China

    Jiawei Gao

  3. Cyberspace Institute of Advanced Technology, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Jiayin Qi

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Contributions

YY: Conceptualization, Investigation, Data curation, Software, Validation, Writing. JG: Software, Validation, Writing. JQ: Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Jiawei Gao or Jiayin Qi.

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Appendixes

Appendixes

1.1 Section A: Data source description

Information regarding the data collection process, including the regions covered and the questionnaire content, can be found at (https://www.iscn.org.cn) (please note that certain content is still protected by copyright). This survey was conducted in collaboration with governments, universities, and industry associations across different regions, ensuring its high validity. Moreover, throughout the data collection process, extensive expert evaluations and scores were taken into consideration, further enhancing the scientific rigor of this nationwide survey.

1.2 Section B: Variables correlation and multicollinearity test

(See Table 9 and 10).

Table 9 Variables correlation
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Table 10 Multicollinearity test
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1.3 Section C: Endogeneity test of opinion leader acceptance

(See Table 11).

Table 11 Endogeneity test results
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1.4 Section D: Empirical analysis results of three-way interaction effect (test of cultural theory of risk)

(See Table 12 and 13).

Table 12 Consumers’ educational levels
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Table 13 Consumers’ occupational status
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Yang, Y., Gao, J. & Qi, J. Moderating effect of consumers’ opinion leader acceptance: Exploring the relationship between livestreaming shopping and online shopping safety satisfaction. Electron Commer Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-024-09809-6

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