Live‐streaming selling with consumer returns: How does the sample strategy impact pricing decisions and streamer choice of the manufacturer?

Consumer returns on live‐streaming channels, positively or negatively impacted by the interaction‐perception effect, are becoming an increasingly serious problem for manufacturers due to the value losses associated with returned products. This paper examines the influence of sample strategy on manufacturers and streamers and investigates how the strategy influences the streamer‐type selection. We model a manufacturer deploying an employee or influencer streamer to sell products, accounting for sample‐strategy adoption. We find that adopting the sample strategy impacts the choice of streamer types. Without the sample strategy, the manufacturer deploys the influencer streamer only at a low production cost and high value retained proportion. However, with the sample strategy, it prefers the influencer streamer at a low sample cost and high residual value. Counterintuitively, the choice of streamer types does not influence the implementation of the sample strategy. The manufacturer adopts the sample strategy at either a high residual value or high production cost.