The interactive impact of social interaction and product involvement on customer stickiness in the context of live streaming e-commerce

As live-streaming e-commerce markets mature, customer stickiness has become critical for platform success and a core prerequisite for its sustainable development. While social interaction serves as the primary engagement mechanism, its effectiveness varies across product types. This study examines the interactive effects of social interaction content and product involvement on customer stickiness in live-streaming e-commerce. Grounded in the stimulus-organism-response model and dual-process theory, three experiments with the total number of 1,360 participants used a 2 × 2 design manipulating social interaction type (information vs. relationship) and product involvement (high vs. low). Results reveal that information interaction generates higher customer stickiness under high involvement, while relationship interaction is more effective under low involvement. Customer trust and cognitive lock-in mediate these effects through emotional and cognitive pathways. Shopping motivation moderates these relationships. Specifically, utilitarian consumers benefit from both optimal combinations, while hedonic consumers only benefit from relationship interaction under low involvement. The findings provide evidence-based guidance for platforms to align interaction content with product characteristics and advance theoretical understanding of customer engagement mechanisms in live-streaming e-commerce.