the next big hustle sweeping Europe

While China will forever remain streets ahead, the medium is undeniably taking root in Europe. On Whatnot’s platform, there’s been a 600% year-on-year increase in European sellers specifically, and they host more than 20,000 hours of live shows a week. Over half (59%) generate the majority of their revenue from live selling, which rises to 70% for UK sellers, according to the platform’s data from early 2025. This real-time, interactive approach to shopping is attractive for small resale businesses, but is also pulling in passionate buyers-turned-sellers, many of whom have never been in front of an audience before.

It chimes with a trend that Sam Shaw, strategy director at cultural insights practice Canvas8, has been tracking for over a decade — the desire to be your own boss, which is especially prevalent among younger generations. Nearly two-thirds of people aged 18 to 35 say they’ve started a side gig to supplement their income, or plan to start one, according to a survey by Intuit. Nearly half of those surveyed say their primary motivation for starting a side hustle is to be their own boss. “There’s a strong desire for independence and to build something personal,” says Shaw. “Live selling lets people turn their interests or products into a business.”

Andrew Tubman, for example, hadn’t heard of live selling before he attended the London Card Show with his young son in 2023. A punter with a penchant for Pokémon cards, it was here that he first came across Whatnot. He downloaded the app and used it to buy more trading cards, and spent big on several limited edition Disney collections. “I was watching how livestreamers were doing it, what works and what doesn’t,” explains the 35-year-old from Cranleigh, Surrey. “Then I took the leap to do my first show as a seller in February last year — it was addictive.”

Working a 48-hour week in the motor trade industry, Andrew — known as @TubmanBreaks on Whatnot — managed to fit in a couple of shows weekly, selling sports and entertainment trading cards. He began to see that it could be a viable sideline business. Less than two months after Andrew and his wife Chantel registered as a company, it was clear that demand was high, and live selling alongside the day job wasn’t sustainable.

“At least six nights a week, I was streaming all night, then staying up to pack the cards for postage — it was exhausting,” explains Andrew. “I’d been doing my full-time job for a decade, and although stable, I didn’t enjoy it — it was just to pay the bills and put food on the table for my three kids.” Since leaving his salaried role and putting everything into the business in the spring of 2024, Andrew hasn’t looked back. Monthly turnover now easily exceeds £1mn (€1.2mn), with Andrew and his wife each paying themselves an annual salary of £50,000 (€59,600). “It’s not been a get-rich-quick scheme though — we’ve put a lot of hours in, and plenty of revenue has gone straight back into the business so we can grow,” he says. 

“I’m putting on a good show that makes people feel less alone”

In a sea of social selling platforms, why is Whatnot netting so many sellers? First off, the earning potential is hard to ignore. Andrew’s balance sheet is far from an anomaly on Whatnot. Almost two-thirds (65%) of European live sellers are making more than £10,000 (€11,900) a month, and one in four earn over £50,000 (€59,600) a month. They have an eye on further growth too — 78% plan to expand their efforts this year.

Up against other live selling platforms, Whatnot’s seller fees are largely aligned. In Europe, it charges a standard commission fee of 6.67% plus VAT on the final price, compared to TikTok Shop, which raised its UK seller fees from 5% to 9% in 2024, and Instagram Live, which charges a 5% selling fee per shipment. For shipments that are £7.96 (€9.49) or less, a flat fee of 23p (€0.27) is charged instead. Fee comparisons with static selling platforms like eBay and Poshmark are almost pointless, though, as many are battling to keep fees low or eliminate them entirely. For example, there are no seller fees on Vinted; instead, the platform collects 5% and €0.70 per item from the buyer. 

Jon-Luc Greenwood, 26, from Manchester, UK, has been in the resale business across several platforms since he left college over 10 years ago, and had been predominantly making a living selling clothes on eBay until he discovered Whatnot. He met girlfriend Char Williams three years ago after she asked him for business advice, and not long after, moved down to live with her in Plymouth, Devon.

“I have a degree in beauty promotion, and worked across several cosmetics counters, but a period of ill health meant I couldn’t work a normal nine-to-five job,” says 27-year-old Char, who stumbled upon selling on apps while recovering. With Char’s knowledge of makeup and skincare, and Jon-Luc’s resale expertise, they set up as @jonlucandchar on Whatnot in November 2023. Within months, the pendulum of earnings swung from eBay to Whatnot.

Soon, 90% of their income was generated through the livestream app and by Q4 of 2024, weekly sales reached £15,000 (€18,000) a week. For them, the draw is “instant gratification” and the ability to shift a high volume of products, for example, through flash sales, yet also garner high bids for one-off editions. Payment for shipping is integrated within the platform, which saves hours when selling thousands of goods at a time.

When asked about the benefits of Whatnot over other platforms, increased sales volumes came out top (43%) for European live sellers too, followed by larger revenue (42%). Naturally, sellers get a kick out of seeing their earnings tick up in real-time as they stream, but Jon-Luc, Char, and Andrew all highlight the boost they get from their audiences too. “Most of my friends think I’m mad for buying pieces of shiny cardboard, but through this, I’ve met so many new friends and people I speak to on a daily basis via WhatsApp,” says Andrew.

Jon-Luc points out that with skincare and beauty being strongly rooted in community, their livestreams have become a social space too, with many of the same women joining. Some watch every minute of every stream — roughly 20 hours a week, spread across three evenings. They might not shop, but they just like being there. “Everyone comes and talks about their day or their problems in the chat,” says Jon-Luc. “We also have a Facebook community page where people put photos of themselves using our products, ask questions, and make suggestions of what they want next — we can see people getting really friendly with one another.”  

Char compares livestreaming to “being on FaceTime with a friend,” and often tailors recommendations to individual budgets and medical needs like rosacea or severe acne. “Ultimately, I’m putting on a show, so the banter and giveaways need to be good, but it’s making people feel less alone too — they’re finding a companionship they might not get elsewhere,” explains Char. “I spend eight hours at a time talking to these people so I get to know them.” With all the adrenaline, she says the minutes fly by, and she’s more than accustomed to talking continuously on camera, having built up “the live presenting muscle”. 

Typically, Char goes live from the warehouse at 5pm, finishes at 1am, goes home to cook dinner, and is asleep by 3am. The day after a show is spent packing goods and breathing a sigh of relief, she says. While there’s a physical, location-based element to this kind of work — holding up items and having space to store and pack them afterwards — there’s a freedom to it too. With the right kind of organisation, portable tech, and staff to pack and send items, live sellers can broadcast from anywhere. “We went live for an hour when we were on holiday in Dubai, and sold thousands of pounds worth of stuff,” says Jon-Luc.  

European-style live selling

While video commerce — or v-commerce — may be just nudging at mainstream status in Europe, the videoification of almost everything else, from podcasts and news to education and medical care, is at fever pitch level. Research by network insights firm Sandvine found that live and on-demand video constituted an estimated 62.46% of EMEA internet traffic by volume in 2022. And at the end of last year, Ericsson’s 2024 Mobility Report found that video traffic was anticipated to account for 74% of all global mobile data traffic.

“If we’re already FaceTiming, Zooming, and doing Google Hangouts, why would we continue to shop static?” says Maryam Ghahremani, CEO of Bambuser, a social commerce platform that works with brands like Audi, Sonos, and Zara to produce livestream and shoppable content. “Shopping and e-commerce will, over time, pivot into video, because customers are already spending their time with that medium.” McKinsey predicts that by 2026, 20% of online sales will flow through live shopping platforms. 

In the brand space, Ghahremani has seen live selling move from “nice-to-have to a standard e-commerce channel” in a short space of time. Founded in 2007 with a focus on mobile broadcasting and citizen journalism, the Swedish-born Bambuser now works on providing retailers with the technology to produce live selling content across any digital channel, saving them from hiring a production and web development team.

Looking to the future, Ghahremani expects more large brands to begin training up their internal staff to be live sellers. Whether it’s floor staff, shop assistants, buyers, or directors, they already know the products inside-out, and so only require training in being on camera and using the technology. Electricals store Currys began by offering one-way video calls between customers and in-store staff members, which has grown into the UK retail industry’s largest video commerce channel, with designated spaces in physical stores for staff to live sell and advise. 

Reliability and a human touch certainly play a role in the v-commerce influx, in part, driven by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, which sees people having to do more thorough research into purchases. A report from 2025 found that 55% of European consumers can’t afford to make the wrong choice, with quality and trust now trumping price. “While live selling in China is transactional, I see the shift in EMEA and the US being more about brand storytelling, transparency, and education,” says Ghahremani. “People aren’t going with just the goal of shopping — they want to be entertained, and educated with brand or product knowledge.”

As major players like TikTok Shop, Instagram Live, Whatnot, and Amazon Live work to create and develop full-stack ecosystems that transition from video to checkout seamlessly, more people are going to find themselves live selling on the side — by chance and by design. “Europeans are choosing live selling over traditional jobs because they’re disappointed with conventional career paths and as regular wages aren’t covering expenses, they’re looking for other ways to make money,” says Shaw, of Canvas8. “Live selling seems to offer the chance to set their own hours and directly profit from their efforts.” 

Tapping aspects of the gig economy, influencer culture and direct peer-to-peer sales, this model may grant relative freedom, but effectively paves the way for a never-ending hustle. Jon-Luc and Char already have one staff member who manages packing and postage, but want to hire a full-time seller who could stream during the day, making it an almost 24-hour operation. As Char points out: “We know other streamers who are constantly live, and just move from one stream to another throughout the day and into the night — after all, if you’re not live, you’re not making money.”