Exploring the Structural Relationship among Beauty Influencers’ Attractiveness and Homophily, Emotional Attachment, and Live Commerce Stickiness

Abstract

This study aims to understand how an influencer’s social and physical attractiveness, background and value homophily influences consumer’s emotional attachment, which in turn causes user stickiness with regards the influencer`s live commerce. We tested all proposed hypotheses among users of the online shopping platform “TaoBao”. Ultimately, 297 questionnaires were collected by means of an online survey. The results revealed that social and physical attractiveness positively influence emotional attachment. Meanwhile only value homophily significantly affected emotional attachment, whereas background homophily did not significantly affect emotional attachment. Additionally, emotional attachment was found to significantly influence live commerce stickiness. We also investigated the moderation effect of perceived beauty trends of products sold on live commerce, where the results indicated that high beauty tends to have a higher effect on live commerce stickiness behavior. Lastly, theoretical and managerial implications have been offered.