<p>Live-streaming e-commerce has gained immense popularity, and choosing an effective live-streaming showcasing strategy is crucial. This paper constructs a dual-channel retailing system under three live-streaming showcasing strategies: influencer live-streaming, merchant live-streaming, and virtual character live-streaming. We employ the Stackelberg game and derivative optimization to investigate the optimal live-streaming showcasing strategy and analyze the impact of consumer returns. The main conclusions are as follows: (i) There is no universally best or worst live-streaming showcasing strategy, and the strategy selection is related to the fixed payment from the online retailer to the influencer-streamer and the R&amp;D cost coefficient for the virtual-streamer. (ii) The optimal refund policy is highly dependent on the return cost. A partial refund policy is preferable under the influencer live-streaming strategy when the return cost is high, whereas a full refund policy becomes more advantageous for both merchant live-streaming and virtual character live-streaming strategies. (iii) The return cost has a differential impact on optimal decisions under different refund policies. Under the merchant live-streaming strategy, adopting a full refund policy leads to both the price and promotional level declining as the return cost increases. Conversely, adopting a partial refund policy results in both the price and promotional level rising as the return cost increases.</p>