Does paralinguistic confidence of streamers influence sales in livestreaming commerce? A view from signaling theory

Purpose – Livestreaming commerce, as an emerging digital retail industry, enables product sales across spatial boundaries. Livestreamers assume a pivotal role similar to traditional salespersons, presenting product information to viewers (i.e. potential consumers) in real time through verbal communication. Existing research has identified streamers' verbal cues as key signals influencing livestreaming sales. However, the plausible effects of nonverbal cues, such as acoustic characteristics, have rarely been investigated. Drawing on signaling theory, this study examines the impact of streamers' paralinguistic confidence markers (e.g. speech rate (SR), vocal pitch (VP) and intonation (IT)) on sales and investigates the moderating role of product price in livestreaming commerce. Design/methodology/approach – Using field data from the Douyin platform, this study analyzes 365 livestream sessions conducted by 17 active streamers, extracting SR, VP and IT to build econometric models for empirical analysis. Findings – The results indicate that SR and IT have a significant positive effect on sales, whereas VP shows a significant negative effect, consistent with the effects of perceived speaker confidence. Moreover, the influence of paralinguistic confidence markers is especially pronounced for low-priced product conditions but diminishes for high-priced product conditions, particularly for SR and IT. Originality/value – This study offers theoretical insights into the role of paralinguistic confidence signals in digital marketing and provides practical recommendations for livestreaming commerce practitioners on leveraging these cues to enhance sales effectiveness.