From Bed Rotting to Collectibles: this week in social commerce
and Live shopping is projected to dominate by 2030
Hi friends!
Best time of year is here — NYC already smells like pumpkin on every corner.
This week, fast fashion is moving at TikTok speed, AdAge is betting on live shopping to dominate by 2030, a 15-year-old just signed with Sephora, and Cozy Earth turned “bed rotting” into a viral moment. The line between culture and commerce has never been thinner.
Let’s dig in.
(September 9th)
Social commerce is speeding up the already rapid pace of fast fashion, according to Forbes. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are shortening trend cycles from months to days, with retailers adjusting production and marketing strategies to keep up.
Major players including Shein and Zara are at the forefront, using social data to quickly identify styles gaining traction and move them into production. At the same time, smaller brands and independent creators are leveraging these platforms to launch capsule collections directly to their audiences.
🛒 Walmart have their eyes on Whatnot and eBay
We’ve covered Walmart’s push into collectibles before, and now the retailer is expanding its efforts through a deeper partnership with WeTheHobby, a community producing 35 hours of weekly live programming focused on sports cards and memorabilia. The new “Collector’s Night” sessions are designed to make Walmart a destination for hobbyists.
This builds on the existing Walmart Live lineup, which has featured everyone from store associates to celebrities like Drew Barrymore. While Walmart’s live shopping still trails the scale of TikTok Shop and Whatnot—each moving billions in GMV annually—the retailer continues to steadily grow its presence in this space.
📺 Live shopping projected to dominate e-commerce by 2030
According to AdAge, live shopping is on track to become a dominant e-commerce channel by the end of the decade. While adoption in the U.S. still lags behind markets like China, the shift is expected to accelerate as platforms strip away the friction that makes live selling more effort-intensive than other performance models.
AI-generated hosts, plug-and-play tools, and embedded checkout are all part of the roadmap to make going live as easy as posting a Story. Combined with real-time personalization, these advances could move live shopping from niche to mainstream, rivaling affiliate programs in scale and influence.
🎤 Seller Spotlight
A 15-year-old lands Sephora
File this under an alternative “back-to-school” program. A 15-year-old creator just signed with Sephora, proving once again how quickly Gen Z (and now Gen Alpha) talent is reshaping beauty marketing.
According to Scott van den Berg, the deal is part of Sephora’s push to lean into creators who not only reach younger audiences but are the younger audience. The partnership underscores two key trends:
Authenticity > polish: today’s shoppers would rather hear from a peer who’s grown up on TikTok than a traditional beauty influencer.
Age is no barrier: Sephora is betting that cultural fluency and platform-native storytelling matter more than years of experience.
For brands, this is a reminder that “youth culture” isn’t just an audience segment, it’s now a talent pipeline. Gen Alpha isn’t waiting until college to join the creator economy, they’re jumping straight into partnerships with global retailers 🤯.
🧠 Brand Move of the Week
Cozy Earth leans into “bed rotting”
Cozy Earth turned the TikTok wellness trend of “bed rotting” into a high-impact event with its live-streamed challenge. The brand hosted an endurance competition—where participants stayed in Cozy Earth beds for prize—aired live on TikTok, and it drew over 55 million views from a 103-hour stream.
@cozyearth We’re OFFICIALLY live #bedrotting #officegames #cozy #competition #winner
This “sleep stream” format built on the rising popularity of “bed rotting,” a trending wellness vibe that’s both bizarre and oddly relatable. Some of the on-demand clips have cleared 10 million views, reinforcing its viral pull.
This campaign turned passive rest into an active creator moment, pulling in engagement and attention without a typical product push. It proves that experiential, wildly-shareable livestreams can create cultural reach—and yes, still drive awareness at scale.
🔭 Trend Watch
Can live commerce scale like affiliate?
AdAge believe live selling will dominate live selling by 2030 and our friend Michael Jaconi from Button wrote a piece in MyTotalRetail this week arguing live selling is the new affiliate marketing. I guess it makes sense: both are performance-based, both rely on creators, and both promise measurable sales lift.
But there’s a big difference: effort. Affiliate links are set-and-forget. Live shopping requires talent, scheduling, sets, production, and energy. That’s a heavier lift for both brands and creators, which is why live commerce, if it’s going to dominate, needs to remove friction.
AdAge’s look ahead to 2030 sees the path: AI-driven tools to lower production costs, streamlined platforms that make live selling as easy as posting a TikTok, and more embedded formats where checkout is a swipe away. Add in real-time personalization, and live commerce starts to feel less like QVC 2.0 and more like dynamic storefronts that meet shoppers wherever they are.
The affiliate comparison is useful, but let’s be clear: live commerce won’t scale just because it can. It’ll scale when we strip away the heavy lifting and make going live as effortless as dropping a link.
From a technical standpoint I can’t see much friction there and the effort is in running the live itself and fighting for every sale. BUT, we might be so connected going forward where being live is the same as be alive.. oh that’s pretty good. If that’s the case then I can see it.
Ok, see you next week. In the meantime, Sell! Sell! Sell! 🫡