The Effectiveness of Livestream Influencer Marketing on Consumer Purchase Decisions: The Mediating Role of Engagement among Gen Z in Malaysia

Abstract

In recent years, livestream shopping has become a growing trend in digital commerce, particularly among Generation Z consumers in Malaysia. This study aims to examine the influence of trust in livestream influencers, interactivity, and entertainment value on purchase intention, with engagement acting as a mediating variable. The research adopts a quantitative approach using a structured online questionnaire distributed through convenience sampling, yielding 200 valid responses. Direct and indirect associations were tested by means of SPSS and SmartPLS 4.0 data analysis. The results show that engagement is much influenced by trust and involvement, and thus positively predicts purchase intention. Furthermore, participation somewhat moderates the effect of contact and trust but not of entertainment value. These results provide valuable information for firms wishing to improve livestream marketing initiatives, influencers, and digital marketers. The work contributes to the growing corpus of studies on consumer psychology in the context of livestream commerce using the Stimulus- Organization-Response (S-O-R) paradigm.