The 2019 novel coronavirus is a non-segmented positive-sense RNA virus belonging to the Coronaviridae-Nidovirales family. We examined the swings in purchase behavior following the outbreak of the COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, and across the world based on the theory of fear appeal. We gathered published statistics (suspected, confirmed, and fatality) on the COVID-19 alongside the purchase of personal protective equipment to examine the swings in online purchase behavior. With a serial mediated analysis, we established that fear appeal is associated with the sharp dynamics in the online purchase as related to the COVID-19. The results confirmed that fear appeal promotes social presence in anticipation of seeking affection, acceptance, and social information. This feeling is a precondition for developing e-loyalty, which promotes purchase behavior. Even though our variables might not be conclusive enough, we believe the findings are fundamental to understanding the swings in the purchase trend in this and any similar situations.

The lack of human and social cues and customer engagement impedes traditional e-commerce until the birth of social commerce. This study investigates how customer engagement in live-streaming digital marketing affects purchase intentions. The results of 1726 datasets from two e-commerce platforms suggest that customer engagement is significantly associated with followership and purchase intention in live-streaming digital marketing. Whiles price is a significant moderator, its effects become insignificant on their purchase intentions once consumers become followers. The results highlight the positive impacts of social elements, including likes, chats, visits, and exposure time in social commerce towards transactional (purchase) and non-transactional (followership) benefits. Finally, the paper introduces a new perception of measuring customer engagement in live-streaming digital marketing and calls for further research into this new paradigm of social commerce to promote business and service provisions even with the restrictions of COVID-19.

Video website operators work in a highly competitive market and, thus, cultivating evangelists who keep coming back and spreading positive word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals is important to retain market share and boost sustainability. This study empirically tests a model proposing that social presence elicited by the emerging bullet screen (“DanMu” in Chinese or “Danmaku” in Japanese) system in video websites serially affects immersive experience and perceived benefits, which in turn influence viewers’ e-loyalty. Data collected from 523 participants provide strong support for the proposed model. The results indicate that compelling immersive experience and perceived benefits are important mediators explaining the theoretical mechanism of how social presence affects loyalty. The presence of moderators such as group identification reinforces the influence of social presence on immersion. In addition, this study also suggests that perceived benefits differentially affect the two facets of e-loyalty (i.e., revisit intention and positive WOM). Specifically, revisit intention is mainly driven by the perceived hedonic benefit while positive WOM likelihood is largely determined by the utilitarian and social benefits. This study is the first to provide theoretical insights into understanding how increased social presence triggered by DanMu comments inspires the desired e-loyalty responses.