A Two-Phase Study on Restoring Trust After Deception: The Role of Apology Sincerity in Livestream Social Commerce

Livestreaming in social commerce enables real-time interaction and transactions between sellers and consumers through interactive streaming platforms, creating shopping experiences that are often more engaging than traditional e-commerce. However, consumers may still struggle to identify misinformation or opportunistic behaviour, which can undermine trust. While prior research has largely examined factors that facilitate trust formation, trust restoration following breaches, particularly the role of apology effectiveness, remains underexplored. This study investigates the development of cognitive and affective trust in livestream shopping and examines how trust can be restored after a violation. A two-wave survey was conducted in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, with data collected from 167 respondents and analysed using PLS-SEM. Wave 1 examines how price perception, parasocial relationships, and vicarious experiences influence trust formation. Wave 2 examines how apology sincerity conditions the translation of trust into continuous purchase intention after a breach. Wave 1 results indicate that price perception, parasocial relationships, and vicarious experiences significantly enhance cognitive trust, which strengthens affective trust, while price perception and parasocial relationships do not directly influence affective trust. Wave 2 findings reveal that neither cognitive nor affective trust directly predicts continuous purchase intention after a violation; apology sincerity instead acts as a moderating boundary condition determining which trust dimension drives behaviour, with cognitive trust operative under weak recovery signals and affective trust emerging, marginally, under strong ones. By positioning apology sincerity as a boundary condition rather than a direct antecedent of trust, this study contributes to livestream commerce and trust literature and offers practical insights for marketers seeking to restore consumer trust following service failures.