KOLs’ Perceived Persuasiveness: Consumer Impulse Buying Behavior On KOLs’ TikTok Live Streaming Commerce

Abstract

The emergence of Key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the field of commerce live streaming has significantly improved customers' propensity for impulse purchases. Their characteristics and those of their live streams, particularly TikTok ones, are believed to have a positive influence on their perceived persuasiveness and thus impact consumers’ preferences and buying behavior. Thanks to its captivating and visually appealing content, TikTok live streaming commerce has evolved into a preferred choice for companies seeking to expand their customer base and advertise their merchandise to a broader audience. KOLs frequently partner with brands to provide limited-time offers, such as exclusive discounts or promotional codes, during their live streams. These special incentives are designed to cultivate a sense of exclusivity and value for money, ultimately encouraging viewers to make impulsive purchases or else they will lose attractive deals due to limited numbers and time, which can be seen as FOMO effects. In this dissertation, we investigated the impact of KOLs’ characteristics and those of TikTok live streaming commerce on consumers’ impulse buying behavior under the moderating effects of FOMO and the liking cents-off of consumers. A structural equation model is employed to test the research framework with 172 users who have experienced shopping during a KOLs’ TikTok live stream in Ho Chi Minh City. Our theme is to identify and evaluate the persuasiveness of KOLs that affect customers' impulse purchase intentions on TikTok live streaming commerce. The factors, including KOLs’ characteristics, characteristics of KOLs’ TikTok live streaming commerce, FOMO and liking cents-off promotions, are conducted under in-depth investigation. After that, both qualitative and quantitative methods are applied to analyze the data collected from in-depth interviews and online surveys. In terms of qualitative approaches, we held in-depth interviews with 6 students from multiple universities in Ho Chi Minh City. In terms of quantitative methods, we conducted an online survey with a sample size of 165 students living in Ho Chi Minh City. With this report, we look forward to contributing our findings to further studies and recommending some potential methods to improve KOLs' persuasiveness during their live streaming commerce on the TikTok platform