How Fast-Growing and Quirky Shopping Platform Whatnot Is Helping Small Businesses Boost Sales Through Livestreaming

Why it matters: 

• The global livestream commerce market, estimated at $128.42 billion in 2024, is poised for rapid growth, with projections suggesting it could reach $2.4 trillion by 2033.
• The live video selling style has been touted for helping small businesses to broaden their customer base and streamline their logistics.
• Whatnot has carved out a niche in collectibles, vintage items, and one-of-a-kind finds, and expects its merchants to sell over $6 billion in products in 2025.

Livestream shopping is delivering a double win for small businesses: more sales in less time and a devoted customer base, said Armand Wilson, Vice President of Categories & Expansion at Whatnot. Since 2019, the shopping platform has carved out a niche for itself in the burgeoning world of businesses selling their products online during live videos by focusing on collectibles, vintage items, and one-of-a-kind finds. 

Whatnot launched after its two Product Manager Founders Grant LaFontaine—a former Google and Facebook employee—and Logan Head—former Senior Product Manager at sneaker and apparel resale shop GOAT—saw an opportunity to enhance consumers’ digital experience buying and selling collectibles. 

They wanted to transform the way people shopped to one that reduced fraud, harnessed more efficient technology, and built a community around products, giving the feel of being at a collectors’ convention or comic shop. They started with Funko Pop!, the collectible vinyl figures.

Since then, Whatnot has steadily grown the types of products it helps businesses sell, expanding into categories like fashion and luxury. In 2024, it facilitated over $3 billion in live sales. For 2025, Whatnot expects its merchants to sell over $6 billion. 

“If you’re a small business, time is of the essence,” Wilson told CO—. “Live shopping really powers the ability to sell things fast, and Whatnot makes it more efficient to sell. It’s been life-changing for sellers.”

The growing appeal of livestream commerce

Live shopping has picked up since the pandemic, when online shopping spiked, and is becoming an attractive option for businesses as people spend more time than ever on social media. The global live commerce market, estimated at $128.42 billion in 2024, is poised for explosive growth, with projections stating that it could reach $2.4 trillion by 2033.

Statista estimates approximately 49 million U.S. consumers will use live commerce in 2025, a number it sees climbing to 60 million over the next three years. 

Analysts attribute the anticipated surge to rising consumer demand for interactive, immersive shopping experiences, widespread adoption of social media platforms, and increasing mobile connectivity worldwide. 

While the United States has lagged China, where livestream shopping has taken off, the trend is now gaining momentum stateside: Nearly 20% of all digital shoppers this year “will buy something off a livestream,” according to eMarketer.

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Whatnot helps small businesses broaden their customer base and streamline logistics

When Whatnot started, founders focused on solving problems Funko Pop! enthusiasts were having on other platforms, such as people selling counterfeit products. 

“The original idea was to build a platform that was deeply rooted in trust,” said Wilson. “We’ve always built Whatnot off the back of providing value and building products around communities.” At the core of the company’s strategy was to identify buyer and sellers pain points and help sellers simplify logistics so they could more easily scale.

In early days, Whatnot sat in the middle of every transaction, verifying Funko Pop! figures to ensure they were authentic. At the same time, its founders watched sellers in other markets go live on social platforms, digitizing live video shopping, which was popular for decades via TV merchants like QVC and HSN. They wanted to replicate the live auction, interactive style of the sale for the collectibles community.

Now, sellers offering products from baseball cards to luxury handbags host livestream shows on Whatnot’s platform, where they auction off items or sell them instantly. Buyers bid live, purchase immediately, and interact with other collectors in a chat. The selling style exposes business owners to a much larger pool of potential customers.

“Say you’re selling sneakers in Idaho in a rural town with not much foot traffic,” Wilson said. “With Whatnot, you can get thousands of potential buyers right now. It’s a convention in your pocket every day just by opening the app.” While a brick-and-mortar store might sell 100 pairs of sneakers in 30 days, for example, with Whatnot, the business has the potential to sell the same number during one few-hour livestream, he said.

Whatnot also helps business owners streamline logistics. For example, before Whatnot, a small business owner may have spent hours creating shipping labels. With one click, sellers can create and print labels. Marketing tools help sellers efficiently promote upcoming sales and livestreams to their customer base.

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A community-focused approach attracts loyal buyers to the livestreaming platform: The typical shopper spends 80 minutes per day in-app

But what the company truly prides itself on—and what sets it apart, Wilson said—is its commitment to fostering a true sense of community. 

Buyers feel like they have a personal relationship with sellers. Referral programs and a tiered Rewards Club with “Bronze” to “Diamond” levels, which sellers can customize, encourage people to come back, linger, and interact with sellers and each other. 

The typical buyer spends 80 minutes per day in-app with their community viewing products they’re passionate about and buys 12 items a week. Thirty-eight percent of Whatnot sellers who also operate a brick-and-mortar store say they’ve had higher live-selling sales than physical retail sales over the last three months, Wilson said.

Whatnot’s approach has paid off. Over the years, the company has steadily expanded its offering from Funko Pop! to Pokémon cards to sports cards, then to comic books and sneakers. Now, it’s selling across hundreds of categories and hosting over 175,000 hours of livestreams weekly, dwarfing traditional televised shopping formats. 

Whatnot is currently ranked as the No. 2 free iPhone shopping app in the United States. Individual sellers that have earned over $1 million have increased by 200% since last year. “This community-first approach is really why Whatnot has been able to find the success we have,” Wilson said.

Early sellers offering sports cards have scaled into some of the largest card sellers in the industry, now selling hundreds of millions in sports cards a year and employing hundreds of people, said Wilson. For example, former finance worker Zoreen Kabani of ZKStyles joined Whatnot full-time in 2022, selling clothes from home. She’s earned $1.3 million on the platform since. The GHQ Crew, a Texas-based seller and part-time pastor, earned $100,000 in a single livestream and is on track toward $1 million annually.

U.S. shoppers may warm up to livestreaming if platforms can keep a community-building focus and commit to problem-solving

Yet, despite their successes, livestreaming platforms like Whatnot face challenges as they seek to attract more U.S. consumers to the new way of shopping, which in China has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry.

In the United States, livestreaming been slower to take off, in part because buyers are wary, said Katie Thomas, who leads the Kearney Consumer Institute at global management consulting firm Kearney.

“U.S. consumers are just skeptical,” she said. “They’re not sure it’s a good deal, and they’re a little more hesitant to act fast. Also, consumers in the U.S. have too much optionality,” she adds, including platforms from 30-year-old eBay to Amazon Live.

“Livestreaming is one option,” continued Thomas, “but it’s likely not on the same trajectory as what we’ve seen overseas where it’s really simple and efficient.” 

Still, if anything can draw more consumers to live shopping, it’s the feeling that they’re part of a close-knit community, Thomas said. Livestreaming companies that focus on problem-solving for their small business owners will be better positioned to come out on top. For example, sellers need more support figuring out the best time to livestream to reach the maximum number of motivated buyers for their products, she said.

“Right now, there’s also a lot of frustration in the market around bot scammers,” Thomas said. “If I’m Whatnot, I’m focusing on quality of sales and products. They do seem to have carved out a unique part of the market,” she added. 

Wilson said Whatnot is doubling down on focusing on its communities and what they want, rather than following what some competitors have leaned into by pairing brands with influencers without a genuine connection to products. 

It is early days for the United States with livestreaming, he said, but “I think it’s just a matter of time. I do think this is the year that live-shopping becomes more mainstream.”

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