Short video channel strategy for restaurants in the platform service supply chain

With the growing popularity of the short video industry, restaurants are progressively capitalizing on the potential of short video platforms to market their food. This is accomplished either by establishing their own short video marketing channels or by introducing third-party vlogger ones. By developing game theoretical models, we aim to explore whether and how to run the right short video marketing channel for a restaurant, and investigate the optimal online pricing ratio and short video creation effort under different channels. The research results firstly indicate that the optimal online pricing ratio is significantly influenced by the creation effort cost coefficient of the restaurant or vlogger, as well as the potential market scale. The optimal creation effort in different channel is mainly related to the revenue sharing rate and the vlogger influence. Secondly, the restaurant prefers to build her own short video channel when the potential market scale is higher and the platform's commission rate is lower. By contrast, the restaurant opts to introduce the third-party vlogger short video channel when both the signing fee for vlogger and commission fee for platform are lower. Furthermore, it suggests that the restaurant offer a higher (lower) revenue sharing rate for the cost-efficient (cost-inefficient) vlogger. Lastly, the discussion analysis indicates that mastering pricing right is more beneficial to the restaurant.