Pricing Strategy Within the Live Streaming Commerce Supply Chain

In order to investigate the impact of hybrid sales models (the coexistence of direct, agency, and resale formats) on product pricing and the market within the live streaming commerce supply chain, this paper constructs a Stackelberg discrete dynamic model consisting of a single merchant, a single agent streamer, and a single resale streamer. By applying the principles of nonlinear dynamics, the Nash equilibrium solution and stability conditions of the model are derived. Through numerical simulation, the stability region and bifurcation-chaos phenomena of the system’s pricing decisions are investigated. The results indicate that excessive price adjustment speed and selling effort coefficient will destabilize the system. An increase in consumer preference for resale streamer is most likely to trigger the system’s early bifurcation and sudden destabilization, while merchants and agent streamer enter chaotic states following a period-doubling bifurcation. Supply chain members must constrain their price adjustment speeds within a specific range; otherwise, they not only diminish their own profits but also induce market chaos and harm other members’ profitability. Furthermore, the increase of sales effort coefficient will squeeze the stable range of price adjustment speed, which is mutually influential. Finally, the application of parameter adjustment control methods can effectively mitigate system instability, restoring the system’s pricing decisions from a fluctuating state to stability.