7 Minute Crash Course On Live Social Shopping

0:00Hey everybody, welcome back to another bonus episode of the Gary V Audio Experience. Today, we're sharing a moment from when Gary was on Squawk Box recently, where he dives into live social shopping. If you've been sleeping on platforms like Whatnot, TikTok Shop, or even Instagram Live as sales channels, this is your wake-up call. Gary breaks down how social commerce is evolving, why it's dominating overseas, and what brands and creators need to do now to catch up. I hope you all enjoy this one. So what's a live event? Is this different than QVC shopping? Not really. I mean, it's really, you know, this is the year.

0:33I mean, next year, this is going to be a huge topic for everybody who watches this program and you'll be talking about this. It really is QVC on social. Other than the way the algorithms work in social now, when a person or a company goes live, they're going to find audiences. The algo is going to bring it to you. So obviously, QVC home shopping that we're in the 80s, the consumer had to click and go there. The fact that I'm going to be in my feed and then boom, there's a live shopping event. and boom, the algo knows that I like T-shirts or vitamins or beauty and I get it, that's going to be a big factor.

1:06Can I just say, you're going to have to sell me on the live events because I already buy a lot of stuff on Instagram where it's a pretty effective ad. It's flashy. It shows me how it works. The video makes me think, yeah, I want this. I don't know if I want somebody talking at me saying, hey, buy this product. You've got this much time to do that. Sell me on this. Why Why do I need something more than what's already selling me on Instagram? Well, I don't really want to sell you. It's been sold, meaning there are unbelievable amounts of people making over a million dollars a month already on TikTok live shopping.

1:38So it's not about, you know, convincing. It's about the conviction. Those are vendors. Those are essentially companies selling. No, they're influencers. You're saying influencers are making a million dollars a month? Yes and yes. Right? So they have a product. Yes, as well to that. And hawking a product. Yes, that as well. This is, look, this is going to be massive. Again, this is such a global platform. This has been going on for a decade in China. I've literally been. I've watched the stuff in China. I've literally been waiting for 10 years for this. Like there's videos of me in 2015 saying this is coming.

2:11It seems a little hokier than some of the flashy ads I already get that are really. I think you'll appreciate this. Some print. Let's talk about it historically. What you're talking about is a print ad in essence. It just happens to be in social video. You mean video? Fine. This is a live person. Great, great. Because it usually shows me something about the product. That's video, so that's a commercial. If it's an image, that's print. And all this is is QVC. It works. I can speak for myself. I have a Pokemon-like brand called VFriends. We're doing live social shopping. I'm doing seven hours, ironically, today about it.

2:42You're going to be on for seven hours? I'm going to be on from 12 to 7 today on Whatnot, which is one of the platforms that's emerging. And three Mondays ago, we sold$40 ,000 worth of T-shirts in two hours. Wow. That if I, and we're good at this, did my best social media non-live shopping advertising, we would have sold$3 ,000 worth. I'm convinced by numbers like that. We just did a shot from the mall for Ramis. I saw. Not a whole lot of people there. Is this why? Well, it's 7.30 in the morning. Honestly, I was back there. I was like, that's a solid amount of people. No, but we used to do. I've been doing this for a long time.

3:14It used to be the openings at 6 a.m. at 7 a.m. at 8 a.m. It was insane. Break down the doors. Is there an investor play on this? Is there a way? This is changing retail, but is this taken away from Target? Does it take it away from Walmart? I'm glad you brought this up. The reason I'm so excited to be here is every retail, every CPG, this is going to be over the next decade a consumer packaged good. So if you're Procter, if you're PepsiCo, I mean, this is going to be a major deal. Because don't forget, we have major channel conflict wars between the packaged good companies and the retailers. And the Amazons and the Walmarts are taking media dollars now away from social.

3:52The overall impact to consumable products and to retail of this dynamic in social shopping and now the social networks taking an 8 % rake on every transaction. Really? I heard 6 % in some cases. 8 %? Some, but 8 % and then a 3 % process fee. But again, this is also going to hit Main Street. If you're a normal store in a small town in Jersey or California on Wednesday at 3 p.m., There is nothing going on. To your point, the retail traffic is changing. The fact that you can turn your little boutique into a studio now and go live shopping. Entrepreneurs can do this, too. If you're a small business owner, you can get right out there.

4:29Ten years ago, I used to go on this program and others and talk about influencers are going to make money. And I got a little, huh. And now it's a multibillion-dollar economy. Does it undermine the big retailers? Does it undermine that? Yeah, I would argue that live social shopping is the only potential thing that Amazon should be worrying about in their domination. That's how big this could be. That's really amazing. And I guess who this is disrupting is traditional media, who might have been pitching you these ads before. Yes, but it's also going to disrupt retail. This is another. Don't forget, attention ultimately is the ultimate asset.

5:04These social platforms have the attention. We're going to now shop in that environment. that's going to affect media, that's going to affect retail, and that's going to affect the product service industry. Do the social media companies make money on this? Yes. So this is good for Twitter and good for maybe some of these other companies? There's no shot in 2025, I can't wait to come back in six to 12 months when this happens, there's no shot that Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Google are not going to be yelling and screaming about this. X will have this. This is too big. It's happened. Who's the best at it so far?

5:36TikTok. And it's not even Tell us the name of an influencer or two that you think have made a ton of money from this or are leading this. You know, it's funny. And what do they do to be so in front? So what I'm paying attention to more is the brand. So Mary Ruth Organics is a brand that's really doing this well. What do they sell? They're selling their vitamins. It's kind of a modern vitamin company. You saw, it was funny. I was talking to Mona and Dustin in the back. You showed the top three things that were selling, right? T-shirts, vitamins, and beauty. And I looked at them and said, all three categories that are crushing right now on live social shopping.

6:09Abercrombie & Fitch, I don't know if you're paying attention that they're getting a reboot. And then there's also, I think you guys covered this on, I don't know if specifically you, but Chili's, the restaurant company. There was one TikTok, this is not live social shopping, this is just social. One TikTok that went viral that represented 40 % of its Q3 growth. One TikTok that went viral. It was a triple cheese quesadilla. It wasn't even a limited time offer. Again, mango gummies, private label mango gummies from Walgreens, the ocean spray thing that was well covered. We have to go, but I have to make a point.

6:44Please. One of the postmortems on the election was that the Trump administration understood TikTok in a way that Biden, the Trump campaign, in a way that Biden didn't. And I think what you're talking about now is investors need to understand it. The battleground on social will impact every single stock on the market.