For those over 30, the idea of live shopping may conjure up corny images of QVC or HSN. But for the younger generation, it has become a new kind of social media where shoppers are spending billions of dollars and hundreds of hours.
Grant Lafontaine, the CEO of Whatnot — the primary live shopping company in America that just raised $225 million at an $11.5 billion valuation — sees this ballooning from a hundred billion-dollar market to a trillion-dollar market in the next few years.
“It’s very clear that live shopping in the US is going to be a huge, huge, huge market,” Lafontaine told me. “And it’s definitely going to be one of those shifts we see in e-commerce over the next 5 to 10 years. It’s sort of been happening in Asia over the past decade or so, where upwards of $1 trillion worth of products are being sold through live video in China.”
While traditional online shopping doesn’t allow you to touch or really engage with a potential purchase, live-shopping changes that. Sellers rotate items in front of the camera, answer questions instantly on a live chat and show you exactly what you’re buying.
The experience is more like shopping at brick-and-mortar store — without the hassle.
For sellers, the appeal is equally clear: They get access to eager, attentive customers without having to pay for any real estate.
“Live video is sort of the best way to bring in-person commerce online,” Lafontaine explained. “It’s almost as if anyone can set up a brick-and-mortar shop anywhere without building the building, and you can go live. So there’s a lot of other fun things you can do, including hanging out at midnight when nothing else is going on.”
The social, human element is key. Buyers get to know the sellers — many of whom are creating the goods themselves — and and can also chat with other buyers on the livestream.
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“With online e-commerce… you lose a lot of the fun factor,” Lafontaine acknowledges. “But I think the core of [live shopping] is that people find shops they love that they build connections with — it is a very human draw that keeps people coming back again and again.”
The model is already creating full-time careers. Whatnot now hosts sellers making anywhere from $50,000 to nine figures annually.
Currently, the products on offer are primarily clothing and collectibles like trading cards, sneakers, and vintage toys. But Lafontaine’s ambitions extend far beyond Pokémon cards and fashion. He envisions Whatnot eventually hosting everything from cars to fresh produce, with the latter being a personal passion project.
“The one that I’m really excited for is eventually unlocking a bunch of food and drink categories,” Lafontaine told me. “It’ll be a really magical experience to be able to get fresh fish from a fisherman or get fresh produce from a farmer, see the food, see the field, see that it’s purely organic … Understand the process and get it to you, deliver it the next day — that would be the dream experience.”
Of course, a fast-growing space with billion-dollar potential doesn’t go unnoticed. TikTok and Amazon are both making moves into live shopping, bringing massive user bases and deep pockets.
Since unveiling a TikTok live shopping feature in 2023, the app has seen millions of users tune in for the consumerism livestreams. Likewise, Amazon — which launched an online shopping product in 2019 —has also seen millions of customers log on for their shopping stream in recent years.
But Lafontaine, who founded Whatnot in 2019 just before the pandemic, believes his company’s focus on creators and customers has engendered enough loyalty to keep his user base coming back. The fact the company’s valuation has more than doubled in just the last year alone would suggest investors agree.
“A decade into the future, you’re likely to see upwards of 30+ percent of e-commerce [sold through live shopping],” he said. “That would be my wager.”
