Livestreaming Shopping: The New Virtual Mall?

The last 18 months of lockdowns and restrictions have made it hard for consumers to shop at stores, eliminating the pleasure of leisurely, impulse buying, or even seeing a product or speaking with an associate. The answer to this problem may be a decade-long Chinese trend: Livestreaming shopping. It’s set to become a $6b market in the U.S. this year, growing to $25 billion by 2023, according to Coresight.

 

So, is livestreaming shopping set to become the virtual mall of the near future? And how does it tie together disparate shopping trends like the explosion of TikTok, social media influencers and the past success of channels like QVC and HSN? To explore this livestreaming commerce trend in more detail, we’re talking today with Jared Blank, CMO at ecommerce marketplace platform VTEX.