The Role of Parasocial Interaction on Consumers’ Intention to Purchase Beauty Products
Abstract
Beauty products have become one of the basic necessities of Indonesian women, which has led them to increasingly seek information about such products through a variety of sites, such as YouTube—one of the most cited platforms to find cosmetic reviews. This has encouraged the emergence of beauty vloggers who are now one of the preferred sources of information about beauty products. However, the relationship between subscribers and such influencers has failed to optimally persuade subscribers to purchase the beauty products reviewed by beauty vloggers. Therefore, in this paper, we analyze the effect of parasocial interaction (PSI) on viewers’ purchase intention and its implications. For this purpose, we propose four hypotheses. Moreover, we analyze the data using structural equation modeling. The results of this study reveal that physical attractiveness and attitude homophily have an impact on PSI and can affect viewers’ intention to purchase beauty products in the long term. Social attractiveness, however, is not proven to influence PSI.
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