South Korean search giant Narvar acquired Poshmark last year, and the company is now looking to develop livestreaming as a channel for its sellers to engage with shoppers more deeply. US retailers are rushing into the marketplace arena.

More than half (54.4%) of US adults are uninterested in livestream shopping, per our April 2023 survey conducted by Bizrate Insights. Even among the 18-to-34 age group, lack of interest remains high at 47.1%.

I'd like to see them on there because they're really starting to push livestream creators and the development of livestreaming in the US and investing in a new platform called the Star Creator platform to start to develop livestreaming talent in the US. It needs those kinds of people who are going to be able to talk a lot about products, show them, engage the audience and, ultimately, sell.

Livestreaming is where video and gaming overlap. Game streaming has taken off in the past decade. This year, 31.6 million people in the US will watch esports at least once per month. Twitch, used to watch non-esports gaming content as well as non-gaming content, will boast 35.3 million users this year.

China-based sellers have notably been using TikTok to connect with US consumers via short videos and livestreams. Low prices are the top reason for cross-border buying. Affordability remains top of mind. Nearly half of respondents in Global-e’s survey cited price as a reason to make a cross-border purchase.

YouTube hosted its second Beauty Festival in June with a shoppable livestream and exclusive product launches. Later this year, YouTube will allow shoppable livestreams to have two hosts, potentially doubling an audience. Hosts will also be able to redirect audiences from their own livestream to a brand channel to continue watching.

Video and livestreaming can showcase one-of-a-kind products and educate consumers on the value of resale. Additionally, brands can amplify their resale programs by partnering with creators who already feature vintage fashion on their accounts. Use offline channels to promote online resale offerings. Brands with physical locations can use in-store displays to highlight their resale program.

Livestream shopping is growing, and various companies are creating new opportunities. YouTube, for instance, has made it easier for creators to offer shopping links in their livestreams. And several livestream platforms received additional funding this year, which will likely lead to more options. A bigger opportunity may lie in shoppable media more generally.

Kind of same thing with live-streaming. Gen Z chooses TikTok over Instagram for when it comes to live-streaming, our findings found. But again, YouTube is the most popular platform for live streams among this generation. And then of course TikTok is Gen Z's undisputed go-to for short form video. But it is worth noting that yes, TikTok is kind of, when you think of short form, you think of TikTok.

TikTok Shop will give livestreaming commerce a glimmer of hope: While US consumers haven’t been sold on livestream shopping, TikTok has been aggressively pushing TikTok Shop videos into users’ For You pages, with shopping livestreams also thrown into the mix.

A major push into livestreaming will focus on Gen Z consumers and creators. Sellers from China are already livestreaming to US users, but transactions aren’t frictionless. TikTok needs to find the right influencer-product-audience fit. The platform is also laying the groundwork for a professionalized livestreaming environment, limiting broadcasting to ages 18 and older.

Livestreaming continues to make gradual inroads among consumers, and beauty is a leading use case. Though the US is unlikely to match China’s nearly $480 billion livestream shopping market anytime soon, nearly a fifth of respondents in our April 2022 survey reported having shopped via live video broadcast.

I hadn't realized live-streaming had gone anywhere until as I looked through the eyes of my son and we're watching the Super Bowl and he goes, I'm like, "this is happening right now," and he's like, "really?" It was surprising to him that it was a live show and I was like, he's not experiencing that many live TV moments.

Kind of live stream shopping didn't super take off, but if you think about all the different asset types that you're going to get from that live-streaming and all the fanfare, I think it's just about the KPIs we use to measure success. So will this concession drive Lays chip sales? Maybe not, but will people think NBC is cool? Will they think Lays is cool?

More than 80% of US adults did not participate in a shoppable livestream last year, per a December 2022 Morning Consult survey, including 62% of adult Gen Zers. Most people, including Gen Z, don’t want to check out using a social platform’s native tools: About three-quarters of US social shoppers ages 16 to 24 preferred to buy a product on a brand site, per an October 2022 SimplicityDX survey.

Fanatics Inc. plans to roll out Fanatics Live, a livestream shopping experience, in the US later this year, and companies such as Walmart and TalkShopLive are recruiting celebrities to attract livestream shopping viewers. The big takeaway: It makes sense for Qurate to experiment with livestream and video content aimed at younger consumers.

But even with those advantages, only a minority of users currently engage with livestreams on the platform, per The Information—which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the field.

A long way to go: While many retailers are optimistic that the livestreaming commerce trend sweeping China will soon replicate itself in the US, that day could be a long way off. Just 14% of US adults have made a purchase from a livestream shopping event, per an August survey by Bizrate Insights conducted for Insider Intelligence.

Our forecast defines US shoppable media buyers as digital consumers who, after engaging with online media content that has immediate purchase options, take actions like clicking through a call-to-action link on a livestreaming video or scanning a QR code on a connected TV.

US ecommerce livestreaming and owned fulfillment centers are on the horizon—building on the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt phenomenon (30 billion views and counting) to entice young shoppers. A major push into livestreaming will focus on Gen Z consumers and creators. While sellers from China are already livestreaming to US users, transactions aren’t frictionless.