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Engaging the digital consumer: examining how live e-commerce features shape psychological contracts and loyalty
Kan Lu1, Hong Chen2, Maria Hamayun3
1School of Management, Jingzhou University, Jingzhou, 434020, Hubei, China.
BMC Psychology
|July 16, 2026
Summary
Live e-commerce features like interactivity and availability build consumer trust and loyalty by strengthening psychological contracts. These elements foster both transactional and relational bonds, enhancing the overall customer experience.
Area of Science:
- Consumer Behavior
- Digital Marketing
- Psychology
Background:
- Live e-commerce integrates real-time interaction and entertainment into online shopping.
- Understanding consumer psychology is crucial for platform design and loyalty building.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how live e-commerce features influence consumers' psychological contracts and loyalty.
- To apply the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and psychological contract theory to live e-commerce.
Main Methods:
- A concurrent mixed-methods approach combining surveys (296 consumers) and behavioral analytics (500 live-streaming sessions).
- Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the relationships between platform features and psychological contracts.
Main Results:
- Interactivity, entertainment, availability, and authenticity positively impact both transactional and relational psychological contracts.
- Availability demonstrated the strongest influence on relational psychological contracts (β=0.383) and significantly predicted transactional contracts (β=0.241).
- The model explained 35.9% of the variance in psychological contracts.
Conclusions:
- Live e-commerce cultivates loyalty through functional aspects, trust, emotional engagement, and perceived authenticity.
- Findings extend psychological contract theory to digital consumption contexts.
- Implications for designing more effective and engaging live-commerce platforms are provided.
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