Luxury brands’ live streaming sales: the roles of streamer identity and level strategy

Abstract

Today, live streaming selling has grown and pioneered sales opportunities for luxury brands. Through a lens of influencer marketing and source credibility theory, this study investigates the role of streamer identity (i.e. internet celebrities and e-shop sellers) and streamer level (macro vs. micro) on luxury brands’ live streaming sales. Using fixed-effect models, the data from 7,164 live streaming campaigns between 1 August 2020 and 31 December 2020 are analyzed covering 17 international luxury brands on Taobao Live. The results suggest the use of a greater number of internet celebrities and e-shop sellers yields greater live streaming sales. Internet celebrities’ live streaming sales are positively associated with e-shop sellers’ live streaming sales. We further find that the streamer level moderates the effects of internet celebrity count and e-shop seller count on live streaming sales. These findings offer novel managerial implications for luxury brands’ streamer selection strategies.