Live commerce is demand-expansionary because it enables discovery of things you didn't know you'd be interested in, meaning it won't just capture 30-40% of the existing market—the market itself will get much bigger, similar to how department stores and shopping malls expanded demand.
Grant argues live commerce won't merely shift existing e-commerce volume—it will expand the total market by enabling discovery-based shopping. Unlike traditional e-commerce where you must know exactly what you want, live commerce creates new demand, akin to how shopping malls created new consumer behavior. ✦ AI generated
Grant LaFrentz · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-19 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 18:27
“Is there anything you don't think that that gap could close over time?”
The live format is just very very different. It means that a whole swath of different types of sellers can use the product... the thing with live is it's it's demand expansionary because you go in and discover new things you didn't know that you would be interested in. If you look at e-commerce today, it's so you have to know exactly what you're looking for. So all it's really done is take a bunch of offline sales and bring them online in a more efficient way. But you still got to know exactly what you want. And as like live commerce proliferates, it's just going to expand that market. So, not only could it be 30 or 40% of that market, that market is going to get a lot bigger.
verbatim transcript · starts at 18:27
18:27but actually the live format is just very very different. >> Yes. >> Um it means that a whole swath of different types of sellers can use the product. >> Yes. anywhere from, you know, when eBay got started, a lot of it was like smaller resellers. If you look at whatnot today, it's fundamentally like small business and then we're getting into brands. So, and a lot of those
18:51brands and small businesses would typically not be on eBay. >> Yeah. They would never Yeah. wouldn't it wouldn't make sense. Yeah. Maybe they have a brick-and-mortar shop or they have a Shopify store or, you know, a bunch of things like that. So, I think the the seller base is inherently much more diverse. And then the thing with live is it's it's um demand expansionary because um you go in and discover new
19:17things you didn't know that you would be interested in. >> Yes. >> Uh and so if you look at e-commerce today, it's so you have to know exactly what you're looking for. So all it's really done is take a bunch of offline sales and bring them online in a more efficient way. But you still got to know exactly what you want. And as like live commerce >> uh proliferates, it's just going to
19:42expand that market. So, not only could it be 30 or 40% of that market, um that market is going to get a lot bigger. >> Yeah. It's sort of like it would be more akin to not so much like e-commerce, but more like the inception of department stores or shopping malls. Yes. >> Right. Which is like actually expanded the the demand characteristics of the market. >> Yeah. Exactly.
20:02>> Yeah. That makes total sense. So the other thing that is so striking about the demand side and then I want to talk about the supply side in great detail because I think that's one of the most exciting things about the platform is on the demand side I understand users spend 95 minutes a day on the platform. Is that right? >> Yeah about 95 minutes. >> It's incredible.
20:21>> That's like a shocking number and puts you on par with social platforms like the entertainment platforms. >> Yeah. And it's because it's fun. Yeah. Yeah, you know, if you were if you were to sort of simplify whatnot down on like the buyer value prop is it's a fun experience to shop and there's not a whole lot of fun experiences shopping online. Um, and you know, historically