The Impact of Virtual Anchors’ Social Presence on Consumer Behavior

Abstract

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and virtual reality technologies, virtual anchors have emerged as a crucial medium for consumer interaction in the digital economy era. In 2021, the State Council of China issued a national plan to strengthen and expand the digital economy, under which some e-commerce platforms have begun to extend their livestreaming practices into the field of virtual digital anchors. Drawing on the theory of social presence, this study collected 340 valid survey responses and employed SPSS 26.0 and other data analysis tools to examine how the social presence of virtual anchors on the Douyin platform influences consumer behaviors such as purchase decisions and brand preference, as well as the practical implications of these effects. The findings reveal that shared awareness has a significant negative impact on purchase behavior, contradicting the initially hypothesized positive relationship. Meanwhile, psychological involvement, intimacy, and behavioral congruence showed no statistically significant associations with purchase behavior. These results highlight the complex mechanisms of social presence theory in the context of virtual anchors and provide empirical evidence to inform the optimization of interactive design for virtual anchoring.