Engaging the digital consumer: examining how live e-commerce features shape psychological contracts and loyalty

This study examines how live e-commerce features shape consumers' psychological contracts and loyalty. Drawing primarily on the Stimulus-Organism-Response framework and psychological contract theory, interactivity, entertainment, availability, and authenticity are conceptualized as platform stimuli influencing transactional and relational psychological contracts. A concurrent mixed-methods design was adopted, combining survey data from 296 consumers with behavioral analytics from 500 live-streaming sessions on major Chinese live e-commerce platforms. Structural equation modeling shows that all four features positively affect both types of psychological contracts. Availability has the strongest effect on relational psychological contracts (β = 0.383, p < 0.001) and also significantly predicts transactional contracts (β = 0.241, p < 0.001). The model explains 35.9% of the variance in psychological contracts. These findings indicate that live e-commerce fosters consumer loyalty not only through functional fulfillment but also through trust, emotional engagement, and perceived authenticity. The study extends psychological contract theory to digital consumption and offers implications for designing more engaging live-commerce platforms.