Inclusive and Sustainable Supply Chain Strategies in Live E-Commerce: The Role of Influencer Marketing and Spillover Effects

Xiaodong Zhu and Ruiting Deng ()
Additional contact information
Xiaodong Zhu: School of Management Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Ruiting Deng: School of Management Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-35

Abstract: Live e-commerce has proliferated as a new business model in recent years. Live-streaming channel selection strategies and behavioral decisions are critical considerations for retailers to enhance business performance by increasing engagement and profitability. This study introduces the spillover effect between influencer and self-live-streaming channels, offering new theoretical insights into sustainable supply chain management from multichannel retailing, game theory, and spillover effects for channel selection and pricing, optimizing dual-channel tactics for inclusive marketing, and challenging pricing and channel effectiveness beliefs. Hence, inclusive and sustainable business practices in live e-commerce have been examined, focusing on dual-digital-channel strategies involving influencer marketing and self-live-streaming. This paper investigates three digital supply chain structures for sustainability, which are based on influencer characteristics: the single digital channel ( S ) , the dual-digital-channel structure without spillover effect ( D N ), and the dual-digital-channel structure with spillover effect ( D S ). This study employs Stackelberg game models to analyze behavioral, pricing, and channel preferences, and it also extends the model to offline channels. This study finds that (a) influencer effort affects influencer live-streaming pricing, which may not always be cheaper than self-streaming digital channels; (b) commission rates significantly impact influencer pricing strategies, leading retailers to use skimming and penetration pricing strategies when commission rates are low and high; and (c) retailers may develop influencer live-streaming channels if the cross-price coefficient is medium and low but prefer it when the coefficient and spillover impact are large. By analyzing how these digital channels contribute to societal sustainability through reduced environmental impact and enhanced social inclusion, this research highlights key marketing decisions that optimize business performance and social responsibility in the digital economy. It offers live e-commerce managers strategic channel selection, pricing, and sustainability advice and recommendations for future empirical validation to enhance practical applicability.

Keywords: digital supply chain sustainability; inclusive marketing strategies; influencer marketing spillover effects; live-streaming e-commerce; social inclusion in digital marketing; sustainable business performance; sustainable supply chains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10985/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/24/10985/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:24:p:10985-:d:1543976

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().