You may have noticed a shopping trend that seems to be popping up everywhere called Live Social Commerce.

The idea isn’t new — a host connects directly with an audience and pitches them on a series of products they are trying to sell. The US has had QVC for decades, here in Canada we call it The Shopping Channel, and now it’s coming to social media in a major way.

The trend started in China where just last year $695 Billion in sales were generated through Live Social Shopping, and now it’s showing up on TikTok, Poshmark, eBay, and a popular new app called Whatnot. In North America that number is predicted to reach $55 Billion next year.

Just last week a physical retail space opened up in Santa Monica by an agency called Outlandish, where creators are streaming to their audiences in a space where shoppers can walk in, browse products, and even be a part of the live show.

It’s easy to write off a trend like this as an anomaly, something that “normal” people will never do, but remember when Musical.ly (which was later rolled into TikTok) launched and everyone wrote it off as a place just for kids to dance along to their favourite songs?

In those days, @GaryVee was ridiculed for predicting that the new social format would take over the social media space. He’s now making the same call about Live Social Shopping, and whatever you think about his particular brand of content, he has an uncanny track record of being right about these sorts of shifts.

I see it as the next logical step in the evolution of mobile commerce and the creator economy. It just makes sense that, in a world where we get the majority of our product recommendations from people who we follow on social media, there would be an easy way to watch, interact with, and buy from those same people.

So What?

The opportunity for brands is likely not going to be that we should all launch our own live shopping experiences. Except for a handful of brands, people are not going to watch a 2-hour-long commercial from a company (2 hours is the length TikTok recommends that creators dedicate to their live shopping streams).

Instead, we should recognize that Live Social Shopping is here, and find ways to partner with creators or appear in live experiences that people are already paying attention to. And, if we’re particularly ambitious, we can take it a step further and find ways to facilitate those experiences in ways similar to what Outlandish has created.