Live-streaming commerce reshapes buyer–seller relationships, yet the relational mechanisms underpinning these dynamics remain undertheorized. Drawing on commitment–trust theory (CTT), the purpose of this study is to investigate how live shopping marketplace design, governance and community dynamics configure CTT antecedents and outcomes in a shoppertainment context. A hybrid qualitative approach analyzed 13,690 user reviews from Whatnot (2020–2025) via BERTopic modelling, generating 56 topics. Equal-allocation stratified sampling yielded 1,120 reviews for thematic analysis, combining inductive exploration of marketplace dynamics with deductive CTT-guided coding of antecedents and outcomes. Five themes reveal trust operating as a dual-object phenomenon directed simultaneously at individual sellers and the platform as intermediary.
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Buyer–seller relationships in live shopping marketplaces
Live-streaming commerce reshapes buyer–seller relationships, yet the relational mechanisms underpinning these dynamics remain undertheorized. Drawing on commitment–trust theory (CTT), the purpose of this study is to investigate how live shopping marketplace design, governance and community dynamics configure CTT antecedents and outcomes in a shoppertainment context.