Enhancing consumer engagement in e-commerce live streaming via relational bonds Mingyao Hu School of Modern Post, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China, and Sohail S. Chaudhry Department of Management and Operations, Villanova School of Business, Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA Abstract Purpose – Enhancing consumer engagement in e-commerce live streaming is critical for e-commerce operators to build relationships and create consumer loyalty. Using the stimulus–organism–response model and theories from relationship marketing, the authors develop and test an integrative conceptual framework that combines various relational bonds, affective commitment, and consumer engagement. Design/methodology/approach – Using 327 valid responses from consumers of Taobao Live, the authors employed the software Mplus7.0 to evaluate the measurement model and the structural model. Findings – The results empirically demonstrate that social and structural bonds positively affect consumer engagement directly and indirectly via affective commitment, while financial bonds have only an indirect effect via affective commitment on consumer engagement. Practical implications – The findings provide useful insights for e-commerce operators, who should invest in establishing relational bonds and stimulating affective commitment to improve consumer engagement. Originality/value – This study adds to e-commerce research by being one of the first empirical studies on e-commerce live streaming, extends the marketing literature by integrating different relational bonds as antecedents of consumer engagement from the relational perspective, and enriches the affective commitment literature by distinguishing commitment to the online marketplace from commitment to the broadcaster. Keywords E-commerce live streaming, Financial bonds, Social bonds, Structural bonds, Affective commitment, Consumer engagement Paper type Research paper Introduction Over the past decade, online sellers have become keen on describing their products using text and image interactivity technology. It is difficult for consumers to touch, test, or try on items and to interact with sellers in real time before making decision (Steinhoff et al., 2019). Such a shopping experience can increase the feelings of uncertainty and perceived risk (Constantinides, 2004; Gefen, 2003; Kozlenkova et al., 2017). Recently, advances in information technologies have enabled online sellers to present their products in a new way, namely live streaming. This approach allows consumers to get closer to a product and hear the broadcaster describe what a product feels, looks, or smells like (Farman, 2019). Thus, live streaming fosters authenticity, visualization, and interactivity in online shopping. Some e-commerce and s-commerce sites, such as Taobao and Facebook, have started using live streaming. Taobao.com, the largest online shopping website in China, enabled live streaming since April 2016. During 2018, there were 84 Taobao stores that achieved $7.4 million each in sales through Taobao Live (Hallanan, 2019). Taking note of the power of Consumer engagement in e-commerce live streaming 1019 The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant NO.2018RC42), and the insightful comments and suggestions by the editor and the anonymous reviewers. The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1066-2243.htm Received 2 March 2019 Revised 11 August 2019 5 February 2020 Accepted 5 February 2020 Internet Research Vol. 30 No. 3, 2020 pp. 1019-1041 © Emerald Publishing Limited 1066-2243 DOI 10.1108/INTR-03-2019-0082