Examining the influence of technology-enhanced information on purchase of green food in the context of live streaming commerce

Abstract

With the growing concerns about ecological pressure and food safety, researchers and marketers have devoted to finding effective ways to bridge the gap between consumers’ high interest and weak purchasing behaviour towards green food. The unique information advantages of live streaming commerce help consumers improve their cognition of green food’s benefits, evoke their concerns about health and environmental issues, and thus form positive purchasing behaviour. This study develops a conceptual framework by incorporating health consciousness and environmental awareness as mediating variables to estimate how live streaming information features impact consumers’ purchasing intention and behaviour towards green food. Considering the important influences of streamer expertise and consumer attitude on purchasing behaviour, the two variables are employed in our model as moderating variables. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse data collected from 948 Chinese live streaming shoppers. The results reveal that information richness, authenticity, synchronicity, and sociability significantly enhance consumers’ health consciousness and environmental awareness, and the favourable purchasing intention as well as behaviour is the result of combined impacts of health consciousness and environmental awareness. Both streamer expertise and consumer attitude play important roles in promoting consumers who intend to purchase green food to become actual buyers. The integrated model expands the empirical research of green food consumption from the perspectives of specific marketing patterns, seller and consumer characteristics, and provides a broader insight for researchers, sellers, and policy-makers to understand green food consumption and supply in emerging economies.