The Effect of Seller Signals and IT Affordance on Purchase Intention Through Uncertainty Literature on TikTok Live Streaming

Despite the growing popularity of online shopping, consumers often experience uncertainty, particularly when purchasing experience products such as clothing and cosmetics that require direct evaluation. This uncertainty can hinder their purchase intention. Live streaming platforms, such as TikTok Live Streaming, offer a potential solution to this issue. From the perspective of Signaling Theory, seller signals, such as value similarity and physical characteristics similarity, play a crucial role in reducing uncertainty. Additionally, IT Affordance Theory highlights key live streaming features, including visibility, interactivity, metavoicing, and shopping guidance, which also help mitigate uncertainty. Despite the relevance of these two theoretical perspectives, no prior research has combined them to examine their impact on purchase intention. Therefore, this study integrates Signaling Theory and IT Affordance Theory to investigate whether seller signals and TikTok Live Streaming’s technological affordances influence consumers’ purchase intention for experience products by reducing uncertainty, with consumer trust serving as a key mediating factor. To achieve this, an online questionnaire was distributed via Google Forms to TikTok Live Streaming users who had previously purchased experience products through live streaming. The study employed PLS-SEM for data analysis, with 100 initial responses serving as a preliminary results to provide an early understanding of the relationships between the variables. The results indicate that interactivity, metavoicing, and perceived value similarity positively influence purchase intention by increasing trust. Furthermore, trust significantly reduces product fit uncertainty and enhances purchase intention.