Live commerce is 30-40% of all commerce in China but single digits in the US because the Western experience is fundamentally broken.
Grant LaFontaine highlights the massive gap in live commerce adoption between China (30-40% of commerce) and the US (single digits), attributing it to a broken Western experience where transactions, shipping, payments, and customer experience weren't properly integrated. ✦ AI generated
Grant LaFontaine · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-19 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 0:00
30 to 40% of all commerce is live commerce in China. >> What is it in the US today? >> Single digits really. The experience is really broken. Transactions weren't integrated well. Shipping wasn't payments, discovery, CX, and we just thought we could build a better one of those.
verbatim transcript · starts at 0:00
0:00If you look at e-commerce today, you have to know exactly what you're looking for. >> Live commerce is over a third of all commerce in Asia. Is that right? >> 30 [music] to 40% of all commerce is live commerce in China. >> What is it in the US today? >> Single digits really. The experience is really broken. Transactions weren't integrated well. Shipping wasn't payments, discovery, CX, and we just
0:20thought we could build a better one of those. >> I want to start all the way back when you were a kid. Your first online sale was a a [snorts] holographic Pokemon card. >> At [music] that point in time was when like eBay was getting started and I was like, "Wait, you can make money from Pokemon cards? Like I love Pokémon cards and I can make money from doing it." The
0:38first one sold for 10 bucks. [music] That's probably the true origin stories of whatnot. >> Users spend 95 minutes a day on the platform. >> Yeah, about 95 minutes. >> It's incredible. >> Users don't give a about the market. They care about whether they're going to enjoy the [music] thing. It provides value and that's the experience that makes it fun and keeps you coming back. >> What are the most exciting things that
- ·China: 30-40% of all commerce is live
- ·US: Single digits (under 10%)
- ·Western experience is fundamentally broken
- ·Massive adoption gap exists
- ·Transactions not integrated
- ·Shipping disconnected from payments
- ·Poor discovery and customer experience
- ·All pieces were fragmented
- ·US market largely untapped
- ·Room to build integrated platform
- ·Better CX could unlock growth