A couple days ago I was put onto to an app called Whatnot, which is really different. For those unfamiliar it is a style of auction first popular in I believe China. Where an item is shown for maybe ten seconds while people bid on it. Then it is sold and the next item is immediately put up. You could easily buy five or so items within a minute. Right now the biggest thing on the app are trading cards. With streams getting up to one thousand live viewers.
There are a few other streams that are slower paced, but these are mostly items worth a lot more. Either way the model is interesting. There is a giveaway every few minutes to a current watcher which is displayed for everyone to see. The hosts are encouraged to make the stream more of a show. With music, being enthusiastic, having a structure and flow to the stream, etc. The bigger channels have it down and are making bank off this. With the one stream I watch processing over 70,000 shipments in a month.
In the name of science I bought a couple things for a few bucks to see how it ends up working out. But the process could not be any simpler. You see an item you want, you swipe to bid, you win, then Whatnot uses the address you put in beforehand to automatically ship it to you and your card to pay for it. So that the only action you take is a simple swipe.
It is a very different way of selling and consuming goods in our culture. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Though the app seems to be growing at a quick pace. Could even be a good opportunity for us entrepreneurs.
RMcIlwain
This is interesting. I have never heard of Whatnot. I wonder who their main target market is and how they differentiate those from people who use ebay. This is an interesting concept for selling. It seems that it would be more effective than Facebook marketplace because a lot of times things on marketplace get lost online it seems.