Confessions of a Whatnot Addict

I've been in e-commerce since I was 17 years old, using Google Adwords to dropship scooters. I took a little detour but have been focused on e-commerce full time since 2013. I've spent the last 9 years building a seller community of over 250,000 e-commerce stores with teelaunch. Watching e-commerce trends is my hobby and that's how I came across Whatnot....

I'll admit I dismissed whatnot at first. How could an app that lets kids buy Pokemon cards and video games how could this change e-commerce. However, I thought I'd give it a good try for a while and see what I could learn. It's been wild ride, I've spent over 100 hours watching different streams and I've hosted 4 different sales as a whatnot seller.

Here is what I've learned....

Social selling is amazing, you build these connections to the sellers and the other buyers that is not possible on any other form on e-commerce. In three short months I've gained dozens of close friends/business partners, and have meet hundreds of other people.

A great example happened last week. I'm in a stream of a new seller. Toward the end of his stream his girlfriend shows up and starts doodling. The room is interested in what Alex (his girlfriend) is doing so she shows them her drawing. My brother types in "Run It" (in whatnot speak run it means offer it as an auction), and the seller obliges. The drawing causes a bidding war until it ends for $21.

The seller was floored that people were bidding on this drawing that his girlfriend drew quickly (but it was quite good). And then she drew two more drawings, each of which also started a bidding war. It really had nothing to do about the drawing, it was more about the people in the room having fun with each other.

Here is another example of the community that transcends just buying watches. There is an amazingly talented seller named lugsanddials. He started this game where if you win a you can choose to "pay it forward" meaning the next person who wins a watch gets that watch too. Its so insane, you pay good money for a watch just to give it away to some random person. I thought who would do this.

But a few nights ago, this happened 4 different times, people were doing this on not cheap watches, and the seller kept putting up nicer and nicer watches to end it as it seemed insane. It was so much fun and I remember that more clearly than the watches I won.

I spend a lot of time buying/selling on whatnot. I’m also a business guy and I always think about ways to grow business, even if they aren’t mine. Here are the changes I would make to make whatnot even better.

For Buyers

Create an area where sellers can put the start price of an item.

Have you ever been to a flea market or shop where nothing is priced? You are forced to ask them how much something costs. It’s usually way too expensive for you and that’s kinda embarrassing so you don’t ask about anything else. That happens on whatnot all the time. That or people keep asking about the same start prices over and over again slowing down the sales. Let people know where the bidding starts and save every one time and embarrassment. 

Revamp Pre-bids

The pre-bid system isn’t great. It’s basically like showing all your cards at once. I’d much rather have a system that bids up to your pre-bid without going all the way to the top right away. This feature rarely gets used. I know whatnot is all about live selling but not everyone can spend 5 hours a night watching sales. I’d much rather be able to put up a proxy bid (like most traditional auction sites have) than miss out on the item all together. 

More Social Features

Whatnot is a community and it needs more things to make people come to the app everyday even if there isn’t a sale. Stories are cool but they are limited to only sellers (which doesn’t make any sense) and the profile page is kinda pointless. I’d love to see stats (how many sales I’ve attended, how many things I’ve bought, how many hours I’ve spent in streams as a buyer and seller, etc) and badges and all sorts of data add to the profile page that lets people know more about this person. I’d made so many friends on whatnot but almost immediately take the conversation off whatnot to other more social friendly platforms (Instagram where I can show what I’ve bought for example) which is a missed opportunity for whatnot. 

For Sellers

Sellers Starter Kit

Square changed the game with their POS system and I think whatnot is doing the same for live selling. The problem is too many things are being left up to trial and error for new sellers. I’ve seen so many poorly lit or shaky video streams then I care to admit. I’d love to see a Square style kit where you bring your phone and we’ll take care of the rest. Things like a ring light, phone tripod, microphone, etc. Basically put together a really great affordable kit to make sure their first stream is a success. 

Product & Supply Sourcing

Whatnot could really help streamline helping sellers not only have things to sell but also ways to make sure it gets shipped out right. First impressions are everything. I’ve gotten some things shipped in really bizarre ways and like it or not every seller represents whatnot. A bad experience with one seller could sour someone from the whole app. The same could be said with sellers, one bad show experience could make the seller never have another sale. 

You could also help sellers source things to sell. Whatnot could easily create buying groups major categories of goods and help sellers complete with the larger businesses and their volume pricing. This could be a major selling point for selling on the platform.

Persistent Stores

Another rarely used feature is the Buy it Now. Mainly because a BIN and live auctions are kinda at odds with each other. I get why the feature is there but people don’t come to sales to buy things now, they come for the thrill of the hunt. I’d like to see a permanent Buy it Now section on the profile page. Where people can go in between sales to find cool things. In the watch section that could be tools or bands or even watches. Sometimes people need something and can’t wait for a sale and they go to other platforms to get that stuff, which isn’t great for whatnot.

More Nuanced Advertising

The signup and get $10 needs to be tweaked. I’ve been in streams where the majority of people were driven here with the promise of $10 free bucks and it never ends well. Buying something on whatnot for $10 (including shipping) is hard. People who are pushed here with only want to spend their $10 and leave and once they find out they’ll have to put some of the own money on top to use the credit they bounce. 

If $20 ($10 for the person and $10 for the referrer) is your target cost to acquire a customer why not give them something valued at $20 for free to get them to remember whatnot long after they signed up. For example, for $20 I could get you a really nice water bottle. A water bottle that people would use everyday not because they love whatnot but because it’s really good. Not only would they see the whatnot logo on it everyday but everyone they interact with would see it. It has a much longer reach than $10 bucks that will likely make people more upset than happy. Merch is a powerful tool that many people overlook.