Immersive Experience and Impulsive Buying in Livestream Commerce: A Review of the Stimulus-Organism-Response Literature

  • Fengling Liao Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah Branch, 88200, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
  • Dayang Haryani Diana Binti Ag Damit Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah Branch, 88200, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
  • Cynthia Annamaria Robert Dawayan Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sabah Branch, 88200, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
Keywords: Digital consumption, Live streaming, e-commerce, Impulsive buying, Stimulus-Organism Response Theory

Abstract

With the advent of mobile internet and its exponential growth, coupled with the meteoric rise of digital commerce, livestream e-commerce has emerged as a multi-layered ecosystem that brings together entertainment, consumer interaction, and direct commerce. Within the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theoretical framework, this paper reviews theoretical and empirical studies on the impact of immersive experiences in livestream commerce settings on impulsive buying behavior. This review builds on the existing literature on basic scholarship while also incorporating more recent studies on digital commerce, examining how the concepts of visual appeal and interactive atmosphere relate to psychological factors such as cognitive and emotional immersion, and to behavioral outcomes, including cognitive and emotional impulsive buying tendencies. The theoretical background, construct definitions, and proposed relationships emerging from recent academic research are thoroughly summarized. The focus is particularly on the digital-native consumer, in this case mainly undergraduates, because of their different consumption habits. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical contributions, recommendations for platform designers and consumer education for digital-native consumer, and areas for future research.

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Published
2026-09-27
Section
Articles