Promoting sustainable short food supply chains (sfscs): empowering organic agri-product sales in Vietnam through live stream

Abstract

Short food supply chains (SFSCs) have emerged as a sustainable alternative to conventional food supply chains, and are served to be the solution for several SDGs. Despite being widely used in industrialized countries (i.e. Europe or the USA), this type of food supply chain has only recently received attention in developing countries. Moreover, in the age of digitalization, there needs to be more research studies on SFSCs in the field of social commerce selling. In this study context, we focus on promoting farmers to sell their organic agri-products directly to customers in the form of live streaming on farms. Based on the Protection Motivation Theory and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this paper aims to assess the factors influencing consumers’ purchasing intentions, by considering how consumers’ food safety concerns and trust dimensions in farmers (including integrity, benevolence, and competence) impact their attitudes towards organic agri-product, which in turn impact their purchasing intentions. We also consider the relationship between livestreamers’ influence on consumers’ purchase intention. Data were collected online via Google Forms and received 431 respondents and analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model (PLS-SEM). We hope to contribute a better understanding of boosting consumer buying intention towards organic agri-products when watching live streaming on farms in the progress of promoting sustainable SFSCs. The combination of live streaming and SFSCs is a new area, further research can investigate other aspects to enrich knowledge related to this topic. Based on these findings, the authors hope to contribute a new approach to SFSCs, thereby boosting the progress towards SDGs achievement.