“We very much focus on categories that have communities built around them. You’re purchasing because it’s fun and it’s a product you love, versus a low-price cheap good that you’re not particularly passionate about,” LaFontaine says. This also reduces the risk of mindless overconsumption, he adds. “Also, all we do at Whatnot is shopping — I spend all my time thinking about the best shopping experience from discovery to customer support to trust, so our experience is far superior because we have more depth of supply than others in the market.” The average Whatnot buyer purchases over 12 items a week on the platform, and viewers spend an average of 80 minutes per day tuning into its live streams.

Marcie Vu, partner at Greycroft, who is now a board observer at Whatnot following the firm’s investment, says a shopping-first approach tends to be more successful. “We’ve seen a lot of platforms try to move into commerce and generally they haven’t been as successful, because there’s a lot of technical nuts and bolts, like payments and shipping. The most successful companies start out as commerce platforms and then move onto advertising, for instance,” she says.

Whatnot is hoping to cash in on the blending of the physical and online worlds — a trend we’re likely to see more of as Web3 continues to develop. “Whatnot has really tapped into a powerful shift in the way consumers want to shop: they’ve combined the energy of in-person retail with the efficiency and reach of digital platforms, combining marketplaces with entertainment and community,” says Vu.

“In some ways, I see live or social commerce as the digital recreation of a bricks-and-mortar shop with some of the fun stuff you can do on the internet like shopping from your couch at midnight,” says LaFontaine. “With this new wave of building shops on social apps, we’ll see people set up very large businesses for basically zero marginal cost. It’s going to make shopping more fun and efficient, and we want to be the best social and live-shopping platform out there.”

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