A Structural Model of Shoppertainment Salesforce in Live-Commerce

Abstract

<p>Live-commerce, also known as “shoppertainment commerce”, combines shopping and entertainment by integrating live streaming, social media, and e-commerce. At the core of “shoppertainment” are influencers who showcase and promote products during live shopping sessions, balancing between “selling effort” and “entertaining effort.” As influencers play a critical role in engaging and converting viewers, it is essential to understand their effort allocation strategies. We develop a structural model based on the salesforce literature which models the effort allocation decisions of the influencers, who are also the salesforce in the live-commerce business model. The model captures the multitasking nature of “shoppertainment.” Moreover, we conduct counterfactual analysis to examine how sales incentives and engagement metrics impact the effort allocation strategies, and how to design optimal incentive and compensation schemes for influencers. The findings shed light on the optimal design of incentive and compensation structures for influencers in the shoppertainment industry.<br></p>