A Stackelberg game-based logistics cooperation model for agricultural product supply chains in live streaming e-commerce

The rapid growth of live streaming e-commerce (LSEC) has revolutionized agricultural product sales, but the perishable nature of these products poses significant challenges to supply chain logistics. Logistics is vital to the agricultural products live streaming e-commerce supply chain. This study analyzes four logistics decision models using the Stackelberg game approach: independent of the third-party logistics (TPL) provider, cooperation with the farmer, cooperation with the LSEC platform, and integrated cooperation among the players. We develop a decision model for the agricultural products live streaming e-commerce supply chain that takes into account logistics service efforts and compares and discusses the sales price, the level of logistics service effort, and market demand under different models. We use numerical examples to study the choice of logistics cooperation model for players in the agricultural products live streaming e-commerce supply chain. The study results show that logistics cooperation can effectively share the logistics service costs, reduce the sales price, and improve the level of logistics service effort. The logistics cooperation model improves the cooperating players and supply chain profits and demonstrates that reasonable profit distribution is the key to successful cooperation among supply chain players. The logistics service efforts improve supply chain profits and benefit all cooperative players. Moreover, a reasonable profit distribution threshold enhances cooperation and profitability in agricultural supply chains. This study provides a reference for the logistics cooperation among players in the agricultural products live streaming e-commerce supply chain.