Why livestream auctions aren’t the future of e-commerce. They’re the future because the auction industry already figured it out.

A few years ago (2022 to be exact), eBay launched eBay Live.

If you’re not familiar with it, it’s their livestream auction platform (sound familiar) where sellers can broadcast their auctions in real-time while buyers engage, bid, and watch the action unfold. Real-time commentary. Live bids coming in. The tension. Psychology. The theatre. Everything you’d want.

The kicker for me is that eBay didn’t invent it!

In fact, they’re not even the ones who proved it works and scaled it. They had to be shown. It was by a platform called Whatnot, which launched in 2019 and did something rather simple: it combined Twitch with eBay. Livestream. Auctions. Real people bidding in real-time.

This is the bit that made me sit up and think: property auctioneers have been running this for centuries. Long before Whatnot. Long before eBay. Long before anyone even thought of the internet.

So why is everyone suddenly acting like livestream auctions are a new innovation?

Because they didn’t recognise what was happening until a $3.7bn startup forced them to pay attention.

Is the Widget Auction Working?
The industry is divided. Some are divided by the different costs associated with livestream and widget auctions, others believe that the presence of the auctioneer, guiding and commenting live adds significant value, and others believe that it’s impossible to distract, manipulate or argue with a ticking clock.