Live-streamer as A Selling Agent: Is Sales Commitment Profitable?
報告人簡介
肖勇波，清華大學經(jīng)濟管理學院管理科學與工程系長聘正教授。2000年獲清華大學管理信息系統(tǒng)學士學位，2006年獲清華大學管理科學與工程碩士和博士學位，2006~2008清華大學經(jīng)濟管理學院應用經(jīng)濟學博士后。擔任國際學術(shù)期刊Naval Research Logistics的副主編和Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering的執(zhí)行編輯；擔任《中國管理科學》《系統(tǒng)工程理論與實踐》《系統(tǒng)管理學報》等國內(nèi)期刊的編委。研究論文入選2021年度F5000中國精品科技期刊頂尖學術(shù)論文，撰寫的建言獻策報告被多家單位采納。主要研究領域包括收益與定價管理、運營與供應鏈管理等，學術(shù)論文發(fā)表在Operations Research、Production and Operations Management、IIE Transactions、Decision Sciences、Naval Research Logistics等國際學術(shù)期刊以及《系統(tǒng)工程理論與實踐》《中國管理科學》《管理科學學報》等國內(nèi)學術(shù)刊物上。
內(nèi)容簡介
With the rapid development of live-streaming commerce, it has been increasingly common for firms (including brands, manufactures, and sellers) to collaborate with live-streamers (e.g., online influencers, celebrities, or key opinion leaders) to sell their products in the live broadcasting room. Despite the great success of live-streamers acting as agents of sellers, it is not uncommon that some live-show's gross merchandise volume (GMV) falls far below its expectation, since the sales volume largely depends on the effort extent that live-streamers devoted in attracting fans and promoting products. In order to reduce the failure risk involved in live sales, the live-streaming agreement signed between the seller and live-streamer sometimes specifies the minimal sales volume, which represents the sales commitment the live-streamer makes to the seller. By doing so, the live-streamer has incentive to devote more effort and the seller has incentive to prepare more inventories. In this paper, we study the impact of such commitment on the performance of supply chains that consist of a single seller and a single live-streamer. In the stylized models under consideration, the live-streamer acts as a selling agent of the seller and determines the effort level devoted in attracting fans and promoting products, and the seller determines the inventory level to be prepared prior to the live-show. We compare the optimal decisions and corresponding expected profits for two scenarios in the absence and presence of sales commitment on the side of the live-streamer, respectively. Note that in the latter scenario, the commitment volume is to be determined by the live-streamer as well. Our research uncovers many interesting managerial insights. Furthermore, benchmarking on the centralized supply chain, we propose a set of commitment-based contracts to coordinate the seller and the live-streamer.
