Interactive Live Shopping on Red Note: Consumer Behavior and Engagement Strategies
Interview questions
For the Crystal Blogger:
Name/Nick name？
Age?
How long have you been live streaming?
How often do you live stream?
Can you tell me about your journey to become a crystal blogger on Red Note? What motivated you to start live streaming?
What strategies do you use to engage your audience during live streams? How do you keep viewers interested and interactive throughout the session?
How do you foster a sense of community among your viewers? Are there specific activities or discussions that help build this community during live streams?
How do you gather and use viewer feedback to improve your live streams?
For the Viewer:
Name/Nick name？
When did you start shopping from live streams?
How often do you watch interactive live streams that sell things?
What kind of products do you usually buy during live streams? Do you buy them in physical stores as well?
What attracts you to participate in live streams? Are there specific elements (such as interactivity, real-time engagement, etc.) that you find particularly appealing?
Can you walk me through the last purchase you made during a live stream? During a live stream, what influences your decision to purchase?
What do you think are the differences between buying in an interactive live stream and buying in person? Are you more likely to make a purchase decision during a live stream?
Do you feel part of a community when participating in these live streams? How does the blogger foster this sense of community?
Interview Outcomes Summary
JR live streams crystals daily from 8 PM to midnight. Before turning to live streaming, she attracted customers by posting about crystals on Red Note. During her streams, JR organizes crystals into trays, allowing viewers to request to see specific pieces and purchase them via comments. Her interactive approach includes a spinning wheel game offering discounts between 50%-90%. JR has two fan groups with more than 400 members each, where she interacts regularly, sharing updates and chatting, fostering a community that not only returns for her stream. These groups also serve as a feedback mechanism for understanding customer preferences and a space for crystal lovers to connect.
Analysis & Evaluation
Analyzing JR's live-streaming strategies, we can see how she enhances viewer engagement and impacts purchasing decisions through several key dimensions. First, JR utilizes real-time interaction by organizing and showcasing different types of crystals and allowing viewers to participate directly in the selection process. This approach effectively uses live interaction to increase audience involvement and purchasing interest, aligning with the observation that algorithms and interactive strategies can create a "captivating" experience by drawing user attention and driving behaviors through technological and interaction design Seaver (2017). Additionally, JR incorporates gamified elements such as a discount spinning wheel to increase the entertainment value and engagement motives. supporting the Media Richness Theory that diverse and interactive media can enhance user experiences and facilitate transaction decisions (Lombard & Ditton, 1997). From a community-building perspective, JR cultivates strong community ties and loyalty by establishing and maintaining fan groups and engaging with them routinely. This strategy effectively builds lasting relationships and trust, not merely focusing on product sales but on fostering a sense of community. Evaluating these strategies reveals that JR's method of live streaming not only boosts viewer engagement but also strengthens purchasing behavior through the development of trust and community.
Interview Outcomes Summary
Lim previously used TikTok to watch live-streams,but shifted to the Red Note platform in the last two years. She occasionally watches streams, particularly enjoying a host who sells stress-relief toys and watched her daily. Lim typically purchases small items, mainly drawn to game featured in the streams, such as “Turtle Match. She highlights that the interactivity of the streams is what truly captivates her. Her most recent purchase was a week ago during a candy live stream where viewers could queue to pick candy one-on-one. Seeing others choose spurred her own desire to buy. She finds that shopping during live streams offers more emotional value, but it also makes her more impulsive to buy things she doesn't really need. Additionally, many bloggers create fan groups to share updates on new products and live stream schedules and regularly hold raffles to keep fans engaged.
Analysis & Evaluation
Lim's interaction shown her engagement is driven not only by the product but significantly by the interactive and entertaining mechanism within the streams. This aligns with the theoretical framework proposed by Huotari and Hamari (2012), who define gamification as the use of game-design elements in non-game contexts to enhance user engagement and behavioral outcomes. Lim's attraction to games and interactive choices within live streams exemplifies how gamification can effectively increase viewer engagement and stimulate purchasing behavior.Furthermore, the emotional value Lim derives from these experiences speaks to the experiential aspects of consumer behavior, as discussed by Pine and Gilmore (1998), who suggest that businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself becomes the product. Lim's description of live shopping as more of an entertainment experience underlines the shift from transactional to experiential purchasing, which can lead to impulse buying, as she noted buying things she didn't need.
The findings from Lim's interview provide substantial evidence that interactive live streaming platforms like Red Note can significantly influence purchasing decisions through enhanced viewer engagement strategies like gamification and personal interaction. This supports our theoretical basis that digital platforms are not merely channels for transactions but are venues for engaging consumer experiences that blend entertainment with shopping.