When Sarah Potempa, celebrity hairstylist and co-founder of the hair care brand Beachwaver, first tested out live selling on TikTok Shop, she was determined to crack the code for this new digital sales floor.
Her early streams were casual, focused more on community than conversion. In one video, armed with a ring light and her brand’s signature curling iron, she recorded herself styling a mannequin’s hair while a Taylor Swift album crooned in the background. But Potempa noticed her streams weren’t attracting enough views and sales were lagging.
“I thought it would be like hanging out, chatting about hair tips,” Potempa said. “But suddenly, I realized, ‘Oh, wait. This isn’t just content. This is QVC for the TikTok generation.’”
Potempa, who has eight years of experience showcasing her goods on QVC to a national TV audience, injected more of a “but wait, there’s more” personality to her streams. Instead of leisurely demos, she ramped up the urgency: flashing promo codes, announcing limited-time bundles and even hosting marathon Black Friday streams.
Now, Beachwaver’s TikTok Shop presence drives significant revenue, bolstered by an army of 30,000 affiliate creators who promote the brand during their own lives. TikTok Shop lists around 1.3 million units sold by Beachwaver in total.
But even as TikTok’s future in the U.S. hangs in the balance, Potempa isn’t worried. Beachwaver’s livestream success across TikTok and QVC has shown that video-driven shopping isn’t limited to one platform—and it can become a deeply embedded habit for consumers.
Livestream shopping combines several major tech trends, including streaming, influencer marketing and social commerce. But it’s a retail format that has struggled to find its footing outside of China, where live shopping is a $703 billion industry, per eMarketer. By comparison, TikTok’s e-commerce business, Shop, which launched a little over a year ago in the U.S. and has become one of the biggest platforms for live shopping in the country, was targeting $17.5 billion in U.S. gross merchandise sales this year.
TikTok Shop lets users buy products while scrolling through an endless feed of shoppable videos and livestreams, all without exiting the app. This seamless yet entertainment-first approach to e-commerce has helped TikTok popularize live shopping in the U.S., where even major social companies like Meta have struggled make inroads with the retail format. The percentage of regular live shopping platform users has nearly doubled from 7% to 13% between June 2023 and August 2024, with TikTok driving much of that growth, according to eMarketer.
Now, despite TikTok’s existential crisis in the U.S., brands and experts agree on one thing: Live shopping is here to stay, with or without the ByteDance-owned app. TikTok helped accelerate the adoption of live shopping in the U.S. And industry players that spoke to Modern Retail believe that the future of live shopping in the U.S. isn’t dependent on TikTok’s survival. That’s because TikTok has gotten people used to shopping for things over live video feeds. In fact, with TikTok’s future in limbo, platforms like Whatnot, TalkShopLive and Poshmark are racing to seize the opportunity as TikTok refugees flock to new channels.
“TikTok Shop is still in its infant stage,” said Brian Mandler, co-founder of The Network Effect, a creator agency that also operates a creator-led streetwear brand, Beyond Lost. “But it’s already proven that live shopping can drive significant consumer engagement and sales. It’s just the beginning.”
Poshmark, the peer–to-peer resale marketplace, is one example of a company that has been making a deeper push into live shopping. Over the past couple of years, Poshmark has made several tech upgrades related to live shopping with the introduction of Posh Shows and Posh Party Live, which enable auction-style lives on the platform. The company says it has more innovations up its sleeve aimed at enhancing the live shopping experience on Poshmark.
“Live shopping continues to be one of the fastest-growing segments within Poshmark,” Manish Chandra, founder and CEO of Poshmark, said in an interview with Modern Retail. “I don’t see live shopping going away.”
Still, Chandra acknowledged that compared to more traditional retail formats, live shopping “definitely has a little bit of a learning curve, which is more steep,” he said.
Lowering the barrier to entry to live shopping has been a core focus of TikTok Shop’s e-commerce strategy. “We are building a full ecosystem because going live is not easy,” Nico Le Bourgeois, TikTok Shop’s head of U.S. operations, told Modern Retail in an October interview. “It’s a combination of training brands and agencies to learn the technique of going live, finding the right talent, and connecting them with the right products.”
To scale live selling and shopping on the platform, Chandra said the company has leveraged both in-person and online events, as well as the know-how of its more experienced sellers, to educate the broader Poshmark community.
“You have to finetune the formula, because the same formula that works for Poshmark is not going to work for another platform,” Chandra said.
Whatnot—the livestream marketplace known for trading cards, collectibles and action figures—raised $265 million, boosting its valuation to $5 billion. The company said that it exceeded $2 billion in livestream sales last year, a first for the company since it launched in 2019. Whatnot also had its three biggest days for new users sign-ups between January 18 and 20, the three days after the TikTok ban went into effect earlier this month, Modern Retail previously reported.
If the TikTok ban goes into effect, the future of live shopping in the U.S. will depend on companies like Whatnot to seamlessly marry entertainment and buying. In an interview with Modern Retail, Tom Verilli, Whatnot’s chief product officer, said the company is on its way to achieving that.
“We used to go to the mall, both for a kind of interactive social experience with our friends and because we wanted to buy things,” Verilli said. “The reason that a Whatnot buyer spends 80 minutes a day on Whatnot is because it is that kind of combination of social and shopping.”
Another platform that is scooping up a greater share of the live shopping pie is TalkShopLive.
TalkShopLive’s value proposition to retailers, platforms and creators comes from its embeddable video player, which allows content to be shared across multiple channels and platforms. A user can watch and buy products from a live feed on any site, whether it’s a retailer’s website or a celebrity’s social media, with no need to download a separate app, Modern Retail previously reported. In 2024, TalkShopLive doubled its audience, with “Add to Cart” actions increasing by over 120%, according to the company. TalkShop Live also achieved profitability for the first time in 2024.
TikTok’s uncertain future has created an enormous business opportunity for video-focused platforms, according to Bryan Moore, co-founder and CEO of TalkShopLive. In Moore’s view, live shopping technology provides detailed analytics, allowing sellers to optimize their strategies for better conversion rates. “We track 220 interactions within the video player, everywhere it exists, so we have really strong data on what’s working on what platforms and where,” he said.
‘It’s like hosting a party’
Jon Anthony and Brad Schwibner, known on social media as “The Posh Kings,” are top Poshmark merchants who have been selling on the platform since 2014. But when they shifted from static listings to live selling on Poshmark, a couple of years ago, they were blown away by the results.
“Our sales went up by 75% almost immediately,” Anthony said.
Today, live selling accounts for nearly 90% of their revenue, and their sales numbers have doubled since the start of this year compared to last year. To Anthony and Schwibner, Poshmark has become more than just a run-of-the-mill marketplace; it’s a virtual stage where sellers perform, connect and create a sense of community with buyers who return daily—not just for the products, but also for the entertainment value.
“It’s like hosting a party where people happen to buy things,” Anthony said. “We have customers who tune in every day, not just to shop but also to chat and catch up.”
If TikTok is banned in the U.S., Schwibner said live shopping has carved out a permanent place in the retail landscape that’s independent of the ByteDance-owned platform.
“Frankly, I don’t think a TikTok ban would even make a dent,” said Schwibner. “Each platform has its own dedicated audience. The people who thrive on Poshmark aren’t necessarily the same ones dominating TikTok Shop. If anything, platforms like Poshmark and Whatnot would only grow more if TikTok were out of the picture.”
Marketplace news to know
- The White House is considering adding China-founded e-commerce sites Shein and Temu to the Department of Homeland Security’s forced labor list, per Semafor.
- Mytheresa will change the name of its holding company to LuxExperience after its deal to acquire rival Yoox-Net-a-Porter closes, per Business of Fashion.
- Walmart is rolling out same-day pharmacy delivery across the U.S., according to the company.