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Live Shopping Gains Traction in U.S. as Startups Revive Infomercial Format
Live shopping has grown popular in the United States after years of dominance in Asia. App Whatnot has succeeded with rapid auctions while Victoria Jackson, who built a cosmetics brand in the 1980s using 30-minute infomercials and QVC appearances, has returned with a new line called No Makeup Makeup. QVC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month but said its shopping shows will continue.
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Americans are adopting live shopping after the format gained widespread popularity in Asia for years. Bloomberg reported that livestream app sales accounted for 60 percent of ecommerce in China in 2024 compared with 5 percent in the U.S. The app Whatnot has succeeded domestically by running auctions that sometimes conclude in seconds.
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Victoria Jackson built a namesake cosmetics brand in the 1980s and sold products through 30-minute infomercials and on QVC in the 1990s. She frequently demonstrated makeup on half her face during live appearances to show results in real time. At the time, infomercials carried a negative reputation.
"Infomercials at the time had such a bad rap," she said. She added that the format allowed her to reach 20,000 new customers a week. Jackson, now 70, returned to the beauty business last year with a brand called No Makeup Makeup, a phrase she had trademarked decades earlier.
The brand follows a less-is-more philosophy and sells a curated assortment. Its foundations use flex shade technology that adapts to different skin tones, limiting the line to 13 shades. Jackson has demonstrated the products on QVC, where some viewers remain skeptical that one of the 13 shades will suit them.
Current shopping startups are applying a model similar to the one Jackson helped develop, now adapted for social apps rather than cable television. The rise of live commerce, combined with beauty tutorials on YouTube, has reduced earlier stigma associated with the infomercial format.
