Rural E-Commerce Model with Attention Mechanism: Role of Li Ziqi’s Short Videos from the Perspective of Heterogeneous Knowledge Management

E-commerce has provided ample opportunities for facilitating rural economic development. However, the existing rural e-commerce models are far from enough to reach potential customers and satisfy their heterogeneous needs. To fully leverage the advantages of e-commerce, the rural economy needs innovative business models to sustain its growth. Some rural Internet celebrities, such as Li Ziqi in China, have recognized the values of short videos and used them as a creative entrepreneurial model to promote and sell their products to customers in rural areas. This paper applies the reverse engineering method to study and generalize Li Ziqi’s entrepreneurial process in rural e-commerce based on the information adoption model and attention mechanism. We find that Li Ziqi’s short videos promote rural e-commerce by attracting consumers’ attention through the associated distinctive cultural knowledge. The unique, heterogeneous knowledge of products can boost rural e-commerce via short videos as the intermediaries. Short videos’ attention mechanism facilitates the development of new business models driven by business influences for rural e-commerce. Our research provides valuable insights for rural e-commerce entrepreneurs to promote their products.