Livestreaming marketplace Whatnot announced it had surpassed $2 billion in gross merchandise volume from livestream sales this year in its “State of Livestream Selling Report” released Wednesday.
The company, which was founded in 2019 and has a heavy focus on trading cards and collectibles, is among the leaders in the category domestically, along with eBay Live and Fanatics Live.
In its report, the company collaborated with Wakefield Research to study the economic impact of livestream selling, surveying 500 sellers across multiple platforms as well as more than 1,600 Whatnot sellers.
According to the report, Whatnot hosts more than 175,000 hours of live streams each week, with the average buyers purchasing more than a dozen items on a weekly basis.
The company says the most popular items on the market currently are sneakers, stocked by 30% of sellers, followed by sports collectibles and men’s fashion (29%) and beauty products (17%).
The average sneaker shopper spends $500 each month on Whatnot with more than 200,000 pairs sold on the platform monthly.
Sports card sales have more than doubled. The platform’s card sales have been largely buoyed by the rising popularity of breaking, which includes sellers offering spots to collectors and opening boxes of cards live on a stream. One of the biggest breakers in the industry, Backyard Breaks, is among the top sellers in the category.
Of surveyed sellers, the report found 66% earned more than $10,000 each month, while 25% earn more than $300,000 each year. On average, sellers had been running their livestream selling businesses for around eight months, with 69% of them going live every day.
The report found that sellers are quite loyal to their respective platform, with 78% sticking to one or two options.
Over half of sellers claim to be driven initially by passion. The report also predicts growth in the next year as 92% of sellers called livestream selling “very important” to their long-term success, and 88% having plans to increase their activity in the next year.
Demographically, the largest cohort of sellers are between the ages of 28-43 (54%).
The top 500 sellers on Whatnot have all sold $1 million or more.
The trend of livestream shopping first picked up steam this past decade in China as companies such as Taobao and Douyin caught fire during the pandemic. The Chinese market for livestream commerce reached $512 billion in 2023, according to CNBC.
This spurred investment stateside, as Pitchbook reported $380 million invested in U.S. livestream e-commerce companies in 2022, up from just $36 million in 2020.
Whatnot raised $260 million in its latest funding round in July 2022 at a post money valuation of $3.7 billion and nearly $500 million total raised, with investors such as DST Global, CapitalG, a16z and Y Combinator on its cap table.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.