Livestream shopping is booming—here’s why it matters now

We didn’t understand what we were building. That was the real problem. We thought livestream commerce was a marketing tactic—a content strategy. Something to test, measure, and maybe kill after a quarter if it didn’t move the numbers. But we were wrong. What we were looking at wasn’t a tactic. It was a new operating model for retail. A different way of converting trust. A total shift in how people make purchase decisions.

And by the time we realized that, our competitors in Southeast Asia and China were already running livestreams seven days a week, training hosts like sales athletes, and baking their entire supply chain around real-time demand surges. This is the story I wish someone had told me earlier. So if you’re a founder still asking “Should we try livestream commerce?”, let me give it to you straight.

When we first experimented with livestreams, we slotted it under “brand awareness.” We wanted views. Comments. Maybe a few shares. Conversion was nice to have, but not the KPI. That mindset killed it before it had a chance.

Because here’s what we didn’t realize: in the markets where livestream commerce works, it’s not a layer on top of the funnel. It is the funnel. The content is the sales pitch. The creator is the closer. The stream is the storefront. And when you build it right—with urgency, limited-time offers, bundled deals, live demos—it doesn’t just “generate engagement.” It moves product. But only if you respect the structure.

If you treat it like a glorified Instagram Live, people will swipe away. If you treat your host like a beauty influencer and not a salesperson, no one will convert. And if you think your supply chain can keep up with real-time surges without prepping for it, you’ll drown in refunds and delays. We made all those mistakes. And we paid for them in churn.

Here’s where things started to fall apart.

We hired creators with big followings but no closing instinct. They looked great on camera, but they didn’t understand offer framing, upsell logic, or even how to manage comments in real time. They weren’t trained. They were winging it. Then we ran streams with delivery promises we couldn’t meet. Orders piled up. Complaints flooded in. Refunds spiked. Our NPS tanked.

And worst of all, we confused the market. Buyers who joined the stream didn’t understand if it was a promo, a brand video, or a sales event. We didn’t build cadence. We didn’t teach them what to expect. So they didn’t stick around. We were trying to be TikTok, Amazon, and Sephora Live all at once—and we ended up as none of them.

It wasn’t a strategy meeting or a viral trend that changed our thinking. It was a Slack message from our operations lead.

“Why are we doing flash-sale behavior with a supply chain built for catalog retail?”

That was it. One line. And it broke everything open. We’d built the business around predictable SKU movement. Forecasting based on monthly trends. Batch production. Warehouse-centered fulfillment.

But livestream commerce doesn’t follow that logic. It’s event-based. You need inventory agility, pricing flexibility, and ops that can flex by the hour. That mismatch wasn’t just a friction point. It was a structural failure. We had to rebuild—from host training to fulfillment sequencing to promo mechanics. And that took months. Which meant we lost ground to competitors who had figured it out earlier.

Founders love to talk about channels. TikTok as a channel. WhatsApp as a channel. But livestream commerce isn’t a channel you plug in. It’s a system you commit to.

It requires five things most teams overlook:

1. A real host strategy
   Not just pretty faces. You need people who can educate, entertain, and close—all while managing live comments and pivoting on the fly.
2. A promo logic that rewards immediacy
   Scarcity, bundles, countdowns. This isn’t content marketing. It’s sales theatre. Your offer design matters as much as your lighting.
3. A supply chain that moves with velocity, not just accuracy
   If your delivery time is 5–7 days, you’re out. If your warehouse can’t process SKU spikes in under 24 hours, you’ll lose trust.
4. Tech that integrates chat, video, checkout, and analytics
   Livestream commerce lives or dies by latency. Your stream needs to be real-time. Your payments need to be one-tap. Your post-stream analytics need to be surgical.
5. Cadence
   You don’t build habit with one stream. You need consistency. Weekly drops. Predictable time slots. Make it a ritual.

If you don’t have these five, don’t call it livestream commerce. Call it an experiment. And don’t expect it to scale.

Let me be honest. The failure wasn’t just operational. It was emotional. Our team was demoralized. We felt like we were chasing a trend we didn’t understand. Creators got frustrated. Customers left confused. Investors asked hard questions.

I remember one call where a team member said, “Are we sure this isn’t just another hype cycle?” That hurt. Not because it was wrong—but because we had created that perception by executing it badly. We weren’t wrong to try livestream commerce. We were wrong to underbuild it. And that’s a mistake a lot of founders are still making today.

Don’t do it if you’re not willing to rebuild around it. Don’t do it if you think your current ops stack can flex in real time. Don’t do it if your pricing model is too rigid to support bundles, discounts, and urgency.

But if you are willing to commit—if you’re willing to treat it like a new engine, not just a new lane—then it might be the unlock you’ve been looking for. Especially in Southeast Asia and the Gulf, where mobile behavior, communal trust, and live interactivity are already baked into how people engage. Livestream commerce isn’t a Western trend catching up. It’s a local behavior that’s being formalized with better tools. It’s not a way to “go viral.” It’s a way to build real-time relationships at scale.

If I had to start again, I’d do three things:

1. Hire one person who’s scaled a livestream model in China, the Philippines, or Vietnam. Not an influencer. A builder. A GM. Someone who understands the system.
2. Run one stream per week, even if no one watches. Not for traction. For discipline. So the team learns cadence, flow, trust-building, and failure recovery.
3. Build ops before hype. I’d make sure every promise we made—delivery time, refund ease, real-time support—was something we could actually keep.

Because trust is the real currency here. And once you break it, no amount of views will save you.

If you’re reading this and wondering if livestream commerce is worth it, here’s what I’ll say:

It is—but only if you respect the system. If you treat it like a campaign, it will break. If you treat it like a product, it might just scale. You don’t need to be first. You need to be serious. Not serious about tech. Serious about the relationship. The timing. The trust. This isn’t about streaming. It’s about selling in a world where buyers want to feel something before they pay for something. If you’re not building for that shift, you’re not building for this market.

And one more thing—don’t wait for perfect. Start scrappy, but start with a system. Create one repeatable stream format. Measure conversion, not clout. Learn how your customers behave live, not just how they scroll. And most importantly, assign ownership. Livestream commerce doesn’t succeed on vibes. It succeeds on roles, rehearsal, and rhythm. Build the engine before chasing the attention.