Structural Relationships Among Marketing Stimuli, Pleasure Emotion, Trust in Seller, and Impulsive Buying in Sports Livestreaming E-Commerce: Evidence from University Students in Eastern China

As livestreaming e-commerce rapidly expands, impulsive buying has become increasingly prominent in online consumption. However, although prior studies have examined impulsive buying in general e-commerce contexts, little attention has been paid to impulsive buying in sports livestreaming e-commerce. Drawing on the stimulus-organism-response framework and Dual-System Theory, this study examined the associations among consumer herding tendency, perceived scarcity, hedonic benefits of sales promotion tools, pleasure emotion, trust in seller, and impulsive buying. A cross-sectional self-report survey was conducted with 775 university students in eastern China with prior purchase experience in sports livestreaming e-commerce, and the model was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results showed that consumer herding tendency, perceived scarcity, and hedonic benefits of sales promotion tools were positively associated with pleasure emotion and trust in seller. Perceived scarcity showed the strongest path coefficient with trust in seller. Trust in seller and pleasure emotion were positively associated with impulsive buying, whereas self-control was negatively associated with impulsive buying. Specific indirect associations through trust in seller were generally stronger than those through pleasure emotion. The moderating effect of self-control was not significant, and the gender-based multi-group analysis revealed no significant differences between male and female consumers. Given the cross-sectional self-report design, these findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal effects.