What's Whatnot? Culver City startup sparks controversial spending spree and mints new stars
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Set us as preferred Stef Garcia stands in front of her phone and sells, sells, sells.The former reality television worker who lives in North Hollywood shows off a neon-green watch in a live video as viewers bid on her rapid-fire offers.She gives shoppers seven seconds to bid.
“Don’t lose it for a dollar,” Garcia says, counting down.“Let’s go!” screams her co-host.As time runs out, the winning bidder’s name flashes on the screen.
The watch sells for $13.The duo moves on to the next piece from the early 2000s and quickly sells a snake-shaped watch, a blue polka-dot watch and a metallic watch as viewers chime in with questions and comments.
After an hour and a half, they’ve sold more than 200 vintage watches during a “Y2K Watch Party” on Whatnot, a livestream shopping platform from a Culver City startup.Over four years on the app, Garcia has raked in more than half a million dollars in sales selling vintage finds this way.
Welcome to the new wave of shopping: live commerce.It is QVC on steroids: thousands of people selling anything from soap to baseball cards live while interacting with their customers.It is already a massive industry, as hosts have stumbled on new ways to excite viewers into spending more and more.
Whatnot, founded in 2019 and now valued at $20 billion, has propelled the rise of live shopping in the U.S.The company said it surpassed $8 billion in live sales in 2025 and is on track to more than double that figure this year.
Whatnot, which wouldn’t share its total user numbers, added more than 16 million new accounts this year.It competes with TikTok, which launched live shopping in 2023.
E-commerce giants EBay and Amazon have also jumped into the fray.“Whatnot is really the first that has started to gain significant traction in the U.S.” outside of TikTok, said Sky Canaves, a princ...