The persuasive effects of scarcity messages on impulsive buying in live-streaming e-commerce: the moderating role of time scarcity

Purpose Live-streaming e-commerce (LSE) allows anchors to bring offline promotion skills to interact with consumers and persuade them to buy. However, how consumers respond to these communications remains unknown. This study examines the persuasive effect of different scarcity marketing messages on impulsive buying in the LSE context. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts scenario-based experimental methods and conducts two 2 quantity-based scarcity (supply-framed vs demand-framed)*2 time-based scarcity appeals (high vs low) between-subjects experiments to test the hypotheses. Findings The results indicate that supply-framed appeals are more effective in provoking consumers’ arousal and impulsive buying, but are moderated by time scarcity. Furthermore, emotional arousal only mediates the effects of quantity-based scarcity appeals on impulsive buying under high-level time scarcity conditions. Originality/value This study contributes to the e-commerce literature by comparing the persuasive effect of different scarcity messages in the LSE context. We broaden the scarcity marketing literature by testing the combined effect of quantity-based and time-based scarcity appeals. Finally, this study extends the application of the competitive arousal model.