Kim Kardashian logged onto TikTok earlier this month and did something new: tried to sell pajamas, slippers, and matching sweat sets like the host of an old-fashioned TV infomercial. 

“This is what we’re here for: the deals, the bundles, the sales,” said Kardashian, dressed in a white outfit with furry trim. The livestream- Kardashian’s first live shopping event on TikTok for her $5 billion loungewear empire, Skims- felt like a crossover between an infomercial and a daytime talk show. Set in a winter wonderland, it featured surprise celebrity guests and a ‘hot Santa’ urging viewers to keep buying. Roughly 30,000 people tuned in at its peak, and alerts flashed on the screen as orders rolled in.

Livestream shopping- where customers can buy products on the spot from online video broadcasts- has for years been a wildly successful, defining feature of e-commerce in China. While the medium feels similar to traditional TV infomercials, it has largely failed to take off in the US despite efforts by the world’s largest American tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram. That’s partly because many US consumers simply aren’t accustomed to shopping that way, and sellers haven’t tried the format.

TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., is starting to change that. The popular video app is working to replicate the shopping experience that ByteDance has championed on Douyin, its Chinese version of TikTok, for a US audience. Small businesses are increasingly making TikTok Live core to their sales strategy for everything from pastries to home goods. Some have started hiring full-time livestream hosts, and are turning to Chinese agencies that have mastered the form in Asia for advice. Sellers are even hiring production companies to turn their live feeds into high-quality spectacles in an effort to stand out in the burgeoning American market. 

TikTok declined to share live shopping figures, but the company expects to generate $77 billion globally from TikTok Live by 2027, Bloomberg previously reported. In November, the company said brands and sellers hosting TikTok livestreams during Black Friday and Cyber Monday saw an 84% jump in sales compared with last year. Appearances like those from Kardashian, one of the world’s most-followed celebrities, are further validating the format in the US. 

The strategy may be risky; shopping live on a whim is a departure from some of the biggest benefits of online commerce, like reading reviews and hunting for deals. And there’s no guarantee the trend will grow into a habit for US consumers. Live shows cater more to shoppers buying what they want- from novelty items to rare fashion finds- than what they need. To capture the sales, creators or actors need to entertain, making the broadcasts as much about grabbing attention as they are about encouraging spending.

Haley Walsh, vice president of talent at Digital Brand Architects, an influencer management firm owned by Hollywood heavyweight United Talent Agency, believes we’re “only really at the forefront” of what live shopping can be. Walsh’s roster includes creator Mikayla Nogueira, a top beauty influencer who live-sells makeup to her audience of 17.5 million followers on TikTok. “It’s a central part of the content strategy” for those with their own brand or products, Walsh added. The ability to offer tutorials and answer audience questions in real-time makes top social media stars more accessible. “Live shopping allows for a different level of connectivity,” Walsh said. 

TikTok, now used by half the country, has long been a dominant entertainment platform in the US, with a lucrative advertising business. Success in shopping means a separate powerful revenue stream. TikTok Shop launched in the US in 2023, and the company kept pushing it despite the potential for a nationwide ban of the app over national security concerns. In 2024, the company halted TikTok Shop’s expansion in other parts of the world to double down on growth in the valuable US market, eventually relocating top brass from ByteDance offices in China to the Seattle area to take the reins of its US e-commerce group in hopes of growing even faster. 

On Douyin and other Chinese apps, live shopping is already an overwhelmingly popular product. Livestream social commerce in China drove almost $540 billion in sales in 2025, according to research firm Emarketer, up more than $200 billion since 2023. Emarketer expects that number to jump to almost $700 billion by 2027. 

Creator economy experts like Walsh believe the US has similar potential. But TikTok’s app could still be banned, and the product is not without competition. Amazon and Ebay Inc. also offer live shopping products, and livestream shopping startup Whatnot Inc. is gaining traction, particularly with vendors of high-value luxury goods. Earlier this year, the TikTok Shop rival raised funds at a $5 billion valuation.

TikTok live shopping doesn’t require a brand name like Kardashian. Taylor Chip Cookie, a Pennsylvania-based cookie shop, started live-selling on TikTok just a few months ago, but the streams already account for about 80% of its revenue from the app, according to chief executive officer Doug Taylor. The company’s TikTok streams average just 200 viewers, but generate anywhere from $200 to $2,000 per hour, he added. Even on a slow day, Taylor Chip can make as much in a few hours livestreaming on TikTok as it does during a full day at one of its seven brick-and-mortar stores. Taylor called TikTok Live “the ‘on’ button for sales.” 

That success as an early adopter has spurred Taylor to invest more. Like TikTok Shop sellers in other categories, Taylor Chip has hired a full-time livestream host and plans to hire others- ideally with acting backgrounds- with the goal of expanding from its current four-hour daily streams to as much as 20 hours by early next year. It’s even building a new facility in Pennsylvania with two live video studios. “The smart people are going to see the opportunity and be the first ones to get that beachfront property,” Taylor said. 

New York-based 17th Street, a pre-owned luxury boutique that sells on TikTok, also hired a dedicated livestream host to promote handbags to prospective customers for five straight hours daily. The company sold an Hermès Birkin bag through TikTok Live for $20,000 earlier this year, and has occasionally brought in over $30,000 in a single day of livestreams, said Olivia Sperduto, 17th Street’s head of social media.

Megan Reep, the founder of Texas-based Mavwicks Fragrances, said that TikTok Shop “took our small business to the moon” in part because of shoppable livestreams. The company, which sells scented soaps, sprays, and detergents, expanded from $400,000 in annual sales to $32 million after just one year selling on TikTok, Reep said. She credits the platform for much of that growth, and the company featured Reep during an event at its New York office in November. 

“We try really hard to not just make our lives all about selling; we try to make it a show,” Reep said. Mavwicks featured a dunk tank on a recent broadcast and is planning to showcase a small zoo in another. “We’ll have monkeys and lemurs and things like that on Live with us to keep people engaged,” Reep added. 

This year, QVC– which pioneered the infomercial in the US in the 1980s and 1990s- also started hosting around-the-clock live shopping streams on TikTok daily. 

As live shopping has gained steam in the US, a cottage industry of talent agencies and content studios focused on the craft have cropped up across the country. Some are staffed by social e-commerce experts from China offering to teach sellers the tips and tricks that have worked overseas.

Among them is Greenwood Agency, which has offices across China and one in Los Angeles focused squarely on social shopping and livestreaming. Since starting in 2023, the agency has built a roster of more than a thousand clients it helps with livestream management, market analysis and brand strategy for TikTok Shop, said Kaiyue An, the firm’s LA-based chief marketing officer. Greenwood’s services include recruiting and training high-energy, sales-savvy hosts for livestreams. Being in Hollywood has been an asset, because they often tap aspiring actors looking for jobs.

In live commerce, An said, “it’s not just turning on the camera.”