Consumers’ Purchase Intention of Geographical Indication Agricultural Products under the Background of Live-streaming Sales: An Exploratory Research Based on Grounded Theory

Chuwei ZHANG, Yueli ZHANG

College of Economics and Management, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, China

Abstract Exploring the mechanism for the formation of consumer purchase intentions of geographical indication agricultural products in the context of live-streaming sales can provide an important reference for brand marketing of geographical indication agricultural products. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with consumers of geographical indication agricultural products. Based on grounded theory, open coding, axial coding and selective coding were performed for interview text. Finally, 21 concepts, 7 subcategories and 3 main categories were obtained, and a model of the formation mechanism of the purchase intention of geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales was constructed, that is, "consumer cognition-consumer attitude-consumer behavior". Among them, consumer cognition includes two dimensions: the type of geographical indication agricultural products and the live-streaming appeal strategy, i.e., the personal cognition of consumer and the promotion of live-streaming host’s strategy. Consumer attitude is value perception of consumers, mainly including two dimensions of functional value and emotional value. Consumer behavior is the consumer’s willingness to buy. It has been concluded that the types of geographical indication agricultural products interact with the live-streaming appeal strategies. Through the intermediary of consumers’ value perception, consumers’ purchase intention is generated. Among them, resource-oriented geographical indication agricultural products adopt rational live-streaming appeal strategies, which can enhance the consumer’s perception of functional value, thereby promoting their purchase intention; and cultural and creative geographical indication agricultural products brands adopt perceptual live-streaming appeal strategies, which can enhance the emotional value perception of consumers, thereby promoting their purchase intention.

Key words Live-streaming sale, Geographical indication agricultural product, Consumer purchase intention, Grounded theory

1 Introduction

2019 is called the "first year of live-streaming sales". According to data, as of March, 2020, the number of online shopping users in China reached 710 million, accounting for 78.6% of the total Internet users. Among them, the number of e-commerce live broadcast users reached 265 million, accounting for 37.2% of online shopping users. The live broadcast e-commerce has entered a stage of rapid development. After 5 min of the beginning of the live-streaming sale, 15 000 lipsticks were sold; 150 000 items were sold in one minute.... Similar news is common, especially during the epidemic, the real economy is facing severe challenges, and live streaming has become the hottest business marketing model. With the development of Internet technology, the online famous KOL sales model represented by live streaming has brought consumers a more intuitive and interesting shopping experience. It has shown strong economic vitality and has become more and more popular with consumers. E-commerce live broadcast has also developed extensively in the marketing of geographical indication agricultural products. It has made important contributions to driving the sales of geographical indication agricultural products, alleviating poverty and reducing poverty.

With the development of the branding of geographical indication agricultural products, the focus of academic circles has gradually changed from initial brand building and brand protectionto brand marketing, brand marketization, brand competitiveness,

etc

., and more and more attention is paid to the product marketing process. However, despite the branding of geographical indication agricultural products has developed drastically, it still faces problems such as low product awareness and few consumers buying. To this end, geographical indication agricultural products merchants must pay attention to the link of consumer willingness to buy, and only through precise marketing can the brand’s effectiveness be maximized.

With the rise of live-streaming sales, geographical indication agricultural products have also begun to enter live broadcast rooms and take the road of live streaming marketing. In live broadcasts, for different types of geographical indication agricultural products, when the hosts use different words to introduce, it will have different impacts on consumers’ purchase intentions, which in turn will affect product sales. For this reason, it is particularly important to explore the influence of live-streaming strategies on the purchase intention of consumers for geographical indication agricultural products.

In this study, in the context of live-streaming sales, taking geographical indication agricultural products as the research object, relevant influence dimensions were explored with in-depth interviews by strictly following the grounded theoretical process, and a model of the formation mechanism of the purchase intention of geographical indication agricultural products consumers under the background of live-streaming sales was established, so as to explore the impact of live-streaming marketing on consumer purchase intentions and its internal mechanism.

2 Research design

2.1 Research method and research tool

Grounded theory is a qualitative research method proposed by American sociologists Glaser B and Strauss A in 1967. The research process is based on empirical data. The initial theory is constructed by three-level coding of the collected data. Then, it returns to the original data and the actual situation to test the theoretical saturation to modify and perfect the theory constructed, so as to form the corresponding concept and category. This research is based on this method. Through in-depth interviews, information was collected and theoretical model was constructed. First of all, an outline was drawn up for in-depth interviews and relevant personnel were invited to conduct pre-interviews. Secondly, the interview outline was further improved based on the interview results. Then, the improved interview outline was used to conduct interviews with selected respondents to complete data collection. Finally, NVivo 11.0 qualitative analysis software was used for text encoding and construction of formation mechanism model of consumers’ purchase intention for geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales.

2.2 Data collection

The 45th

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Report

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China

’

s

Internet

Development

Status

released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) in August, 2020 showed that as of March of last year, the number of netizens in China reached 904 million, among which netizens aged 20-29 accounted for 21.5%. At each level, students were the most, accounting for 26.9%. Therefore, 20-30-year-old students were selected as interview objects in this study for in-depth interviews to obtain the required data.

Purposeful sampling was adopted for data collection. Based on the preliminary investigation, active students who had live purchase intentions or purchase behaviors of relevant geographical indication agricultural products were selected as the research objects, and their purchase intensions were obtained in the form of semi-structured interview, including face-to-face, video and voice interviews. The interview time was 30-40 min. Before the interviews, the consent of the interviewees for recording the content of the interviews through audio recording was obtained. During the interviews, according to the planned interview outline, some issues were discussed in depth according to the specific situation. After the interviews, the interview content was sorted word by word, transformed into text format and submitted to text encoding analysis using the qualitative analysis software NVivo 11.0. The sample size was determined according to the principle of no new topics appearing in the interview data (information reaches a state of saturation). Finally, 15 students aged 20-30 were selected to conduct "one-on-one" in-depth interviews. The first 12 interview texts were subjected to coding analysis and model construction, and the remaining 3 pieces of interview data were reserved for theoretical saturation testing. The information about the interviewees is shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Basic information of interviewees

The content of the interviews was determined around the research theme of "purchase of geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales", mainly including content such as willingness to buy geographical indication agricultural products for live streams, reasons and related suggestions. To ensure the effectiveness of interview materials, communication was carried out with the interviewees in advance to make them have a certain understanding and preparation of the interview content. The specific interview outline is shown in Table 2.

3 Coding analysis based on grounded theory

In grounded theory, coding analysis mainly includes open coding process, axial coding process and selective coding process. In addition, a theoretical saturation test is required after the encoding is completed.

3.1 Open coding

Open coding is the first step of grounded theory. It is mainly based on the word-by-word analysis of interview data to compare concepts and refine categories. The operation process mainly includes three steps of "labeling→conceptualization→categorization". Specifically, the content analysis is based on the collected interview data. Important sentences are labeled and assigned with corresponding concepts, and then concepts are compared and analyzed to form related categories. According to the open coding steps, this article first analyzed and compared the original interview text, and then pasted the corresponding labels. For example, some of the original materials, "it is really more affordable and the price is relatively reasonable", "you must pay attention to its quality, as quality is the most important issue, and you can buy it without worrying about its quality", and "first of all, look at its efficacy, and the kind that is more unique, and tastes good will definitely be more popular" were pasted with the labels of "the product is more affordable, and the price is reasonable", "focus on product quality issues", "pay attention to product efficacy and taste issues", respectively. Then, relevant labels were analyzed and integrated, and the concepts of "product price", "product quality", and "product taste and efficacy" were summarized. Finally, the concepts were summarized to the category of "functional value". Using similar operations, 20 concepts were summarized, and finally 9 categories were obtained through comparative analysis. The process of open coding is shown in Table 3.

Table 2 Interview outline

Table 3 Process of open coding

ExampleInitial conceptCategoryThe product is relatively affordable and the price is reasonableProduce priceFunctional valuePay attention to product quality issues to eat more at ease Product qualityPay attention to product efficacy and tasteProduct taste and efficacy Im used to buying from a store, so when I buy again, I will definitely think of the store first Buy habituallyEmotional valueI think their service is not bad and it makes me feel very comfortable Inner joyThe introduction is more truthful, making consumers think it is trustworthy Product trustWill be more inclined to buy branded products, have been using them, more as-sured Brand loyaltyWhen economic conditions permit, I am quite willing to try Willing to try to buyPurchase in-tensionI am very satisfied with it, and will choose to buy it when I need it again Willing to buy againIf I buy a good product, I would be very willing to recommend it to my friends Willing to recommend to others

3.2 Axial coding

Axial coding is the second step of the grounded theory. Based on the open coding, combined with the interview text, it classifies and analyzes the initial categories and establishes connections. The 7 sub-categories derived from open coding were categorized, analyzed, organized and refined to four main categories: "geographical indication agricultural products type", "live-streaming appeal strategy", "consumer value perception" and "consumer purchase intention". The process of axial coding is shown in Table 4.

Table 4 Axial coding

3.3 Selective coding

Based on the axial coding, selective coding integrates and condenses further to explore the typical relationship between the main category and the core category. In this study, focusing on the core of "consumer purchase intention", its relationships with the main categories were explored (Table 5). On the basis of sorting out the "story line", taking consumer cognition as a pre-variable, consumer attitude as an intermediary variable, and consumer’ behavior as a core category, a mechanism model for the formation of consumers’ purchase intentions of geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales, that is, the model of "consumer cognition-consumer attitude-consumer behavior" was proposed.

Table 5 Relationship between main categories

3.4 Theoretical saturation test

According to the typical method of grounded theory, after the theory construction is completed, a theoretical saturation test should also be carried out to ensure the credibility of the theory constructed. To this end, the 3 pieces of interview data retained before were subjected to saturation test. It is found that neither new category nor new relationship structure was produced, satisfying the principle of saturation. Therefore, it can be considered that the theoretical model constructed based on grounded theory is reasonable.

4 Model construction and analysis

4.1 Model construction

Consumers’ awareness of the types of geographical indication agricultural products and the promotion of the live-streaming hosts’ appeal strategies have promoted consumer cognition. Consumers, through their perception of the value of geographical indication agricultural products, generate purchase intention. Through analyzing the relationship between the concepts, a theoretical model of the purchase intention formation mechanism of geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales (Fig.1) was constructed.

Fig.1 Theoretical model of the formation mechanism of consumers’ purchase intention for geographical indication agricultural products

4.2 Analysis of factors affecting consumer perception

4.2.1

Types of geographical indication agricultural products. The types of geographical indication agricultural products in this study include resource advantage and humanistic creativity. Resource-advantaged geographical indication agricultural products refer to characteristic agricultural products that are rooted in the unique climate, topography, soil, water source and other natural geographic environments of the place of production, with obvious regional geographic characteristics. That is, they mainly depend on the local natural superior resources. For example, an interviewee said, "generally speaking, geographical indication agricultural products can be named because the light, heat, water and other conditions of the place of origin are very good, and they are very suitable for the growth of agricultural products". The cultural and creative geographical indication agricultural products refer to the "story" behind the agricultural products. That is, agricultural products are closely related to the local humanities, history, traditional customs,

etc

. Especially in the process of production and processing, unique production methods and production processes are often formed, which are mainly dependent on local humanistic and cultural resources. For example, an interviewee said, "I want to know more about its production process and understand the hard work of the local working people, as well as another story that may not be known. I feel that products with vitality will attract me to buy more." It can be seen that consumers" different cognitions of geographical indication agricultural products will affect their purchase intentions.

4.2.2

Live-streaming appeal strategy. The live-streaming appeal strategy adopted by the host is an important factor affecting the consumer’s purchase intention. The persuasion of the audience is nothing more than "moving with emotion, knowing with reason". This is also an important connotation of communication theory. The impact of live-streaming appeals on consumers is nothing more than cognitive and emotional aspects. Therefore, live-streaming appeal strategies can also be divided into rational live-streaming appeal strategies and perceptual live-streaming appeal strategies. The rational appeal strategies are to specify the rational motivation of the audience. They are mainly to convey information about the price, function and quality of the products to consumers and to inspire consumers to make rational judgments about products, guiding consumers to generate purchase intention and make purchase behavior. The perceptual appeal strategies are to specify the emotional motivation of the audience, focusing on conveying the emotional information that the products fit with the consumers and triggering the consumers’ emotional resonance, making them generate purchase intention and make purchase behavior.

Different live-streaming language frameworks will change consumers’ focus on products and further affect their purchase intention and purchase behavior. Consumers often start from different perspectives when watching live broadcasts and generate different expectations. Adopting different live-streaming appeal strategies will have different effects on consumers. When the host adopts a rational live-streaming appeal strategy in the live broadcast room, it will encourage consumers to rely on cognitive factors, making them pay more attention to the functional value of products such as price, quality and efficacy. Just like an interviewee said, "hosts will usually talk about the price and quality of product during the live broadcast, and some of them will taste and try it personally and tell us their personal feelings, conducive to the true expression of product quality. I think this will attract me to buy more." In addition, hosts will also focus on the "story" behind the geographical indication agricultural products, and adopt the perceptual live-streaming appeal strategies to tell the emotional information of the product’s humanistic connotation and production process to arouse the emotional resonance of consumers, achieving the sales purpose. For example, some interviewees said, "when the host talks about his/her personal experience of visiting the factory and the production process of the product during the live broadcast, I feel particularly relieved"; "I especially like to listen to the stories and the production process of the product, which will attract my attention and purchase". Therefore, hosts should focus on the psychological motivations of different consumers in the live-streaming marketing process, and choose different live-streaming marketing methods, in order to promote consumers’ further understanding of geographical indication agricultural products and make them generate product cognition, emotional resonance and purchase intention.

4.3 Analysis of factors affecting consumer attitudes

Value perception refers to the trade-off between consumers’ perceived benefits and perceived costs of the purchased goods. In this article, it specifically refers to consumers’ psychological feelings and evaluations of the purchased products during the process of watching the live broadcast.Value perception is an important main category, which mainly includes two subcategories of functional value and emotional value. Functional value refers to the value perception related to the function of the product, including the perception of price, quality, taste and efficacy. As some interviewees said, "the price is relatively cheaper than when I go to the street to buy, so I prefer to buy ‘geographical indication agricultural products’ on the live broadcast; "geographical indication agricultural products have regional characteristics and geographic authentication, and their quality is guaranteed"; and "The most important value of a product is its own quality and efficacy." Emotional value mainly includes habit of buying, inner pleasure, product trust, brand loyalty,

etc

. Some of the interviewees said, "I have bought it in the store and I feel that the overall shopping experience is good, and the product is pretty good too, so I will definitely make regular purchases in this store"; "I think it’s reliable, and the shopping experience has made me trust the product and the merchant"; and "branded products are definitely reliable and will be given priority when buying." When consumers perceive that the geographical indication agricultural products introduced by the host are valuable, they will generate corresponding purchase intentions according to their own needs, thereby generating purchase behavior.

5 Conclusions and discussion

5.1 Conclusions

In this article, starting from the background of live-streaming sales, and taking the geographical indication agricultural products as the research object, the purchase intention of consumers for geographical indication agricultural products was studies using the qualitative research method of grounded theory, the collected interview data were analyzed, compared, summarized and refined in strict accordance with the order of open coding, axial coding and selective coding, and a model of the formation mechanism of consumers’ purchase intensions for geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales was constructed. The study found three dimensions: consumer cognition, consumer attitude and consumer behavior. Consumer cognition of geographical indication agricultural products and live-streaming appeal strategy adopted by the host will promote consumer cognition. Consumer attitude is consumer’s perception of value, mainly including functional value perception and emotional value perception. It is mainly to attract consumers to perceive product utility from live purchases, thereby generating purchase intentions. Consumer behavior is the consumer’s willingness to buy, mainly including the connotation of being willing to try to buy, willing to buy again, and willing to recommend to others. The following conclusions were drawn. First, the resource-advantaged geographical indication agricultural products adopt rational live-streaming appeal strategies, which can enhance the consumer’s perception of functional value, thereby promoting their purchase intention. Second, the cultural and creative geographical indication agricultural product brands adopt the perceptual live-streaming appeal strategies, which can enhance the emotional value perception of consumers, thereby promoting their purchase intention.

5.2 Enlightenment

5.2.1

Differentiating product types and clarifying brand positioning. Different types of agricultural products should be analyzed specifically to strengthen the brand connotation. For example, resource-advantaged geographical indication agricultural product should focus on tapping the advantages of the product’s origin to highlight the functional advantages of the product; and cultural and creative geographical indication agricultural product should pay attention to the excavation of humanistic connotation and value concepts to highlight the emotional characteristics of the product.

5.2.2

Target audience segmentation and precise live-streaming appeal strategy. Hosts must track and accurately grasp the real needs of customers in time. Attention should be paid to distinguish the specific impact of different live-streaming appeal strategies on consumers’ purchase intentions. Live-streaming marketing is carried out to target groups.

5.2.3

Highlighting product features and strengthening identification. The needs of consumers are becoming increasingly diverse. Whether the product is good or not directly affects the consumer’s choice. Only by regulating the product quality, enhancing brand awareness and strengthening identification can the core competitiveness of geographical indication agricultural products be improved, and can more consumers be attracted.

5.2.4

Emphasizing digital marketing and insisting on content as king. Digital marketing is an important carrier for the marketing of geographical indication agricultural products, and has shown extremely strong competitiveness. Only by accelerating the positioning of target groups and the analysis of potential customers and consumer behavior can precise marketing be achieved. Digital means are used to innovate live broadcast formats and optimize live broadcast content, to attract consumers with high-quality content and deliver useful product information, thereby enhancing consumers’ value perception and purchase intention.

5.3 Research limitations and future research directions

This article studies the formation mechanism of consumers’ purchase intention for geographical indication agricultural products under the background of live-streaming sales. It can provide useful experience for geographical indication agricultural products companies to carry out e-commerce sales with the help of live-streaming sales. However, this research also has certain limitations. On the one hand, the use of in-depth interviews will be subject to the limitations of the interviewees, and the coding method is very subjective. On the other hand, the model proposed in this article needs further testing and it can be further improved by quantitative research methods.