eBay's Live Shopping Business Just Grew 8X

October 14, 2026


Live shopping has spent years trying to establish itself as a meaningful part of ecommerce in the United States. While platforms such as Whatnot have built businesses around livestream selling, traditional online marketplaces have generally continued to rely on product listings, search results and conventional checkout experiences.


Now eBay is reporting growth that suggests live commerce is becoming an increasingly important part of its business.


During the second quarter of 2026, eBay Live's gross merchandise volume (GMV), the total value of merchandise sold through the platform, increased eightfold compared with the same period a year earlier.


The company also reported improvements in live-shopping engagement, including viewers, watch time and items sold.


Those results have attracted attention beyond the ecommerce industry. In October, Morgan Stanley highlighted live commerce as a potential contributor to eBay's growth, bringing renewed investor attention to a selling format that has often been viewed as a niche activity.


The development raises a broader question: could live shopping become a standard part of how established ecommerce marketplaces operate?


From Traditional Marketplace to Live Shopping


eBay built its business around connecting buyers and sellers through online listings and auctions. Customers could search for products, compare options, examine photographs and make purchasing decisions independently.


Live commerce introduces a different experience.


Rather than waiting for customers to discover individual listings, sellers can present products during a livestream, demonstrate their features, answer questions and interact with potential buyers as purchases take place.


The approach combines several activities that traditionally happen separately: product discovery, customer engagement, sales presentations and transactions.


For sellers, that creates opportunities to explain products in greater detail and build relationships with audiences. For customers, it provides a more interactive way to evaluate merchandise before buying.


Importantly, eBay doesn't have to replace its existing marketplace to introduce this experience. Live shopping can operate alongside traditional listings, providing an additional route for customers to discover and purchase products.


That makes eBay's expansion particularly interesting. The company is introducing a different buying experience within an established ecommerce ecosystem rather than building an entirely new marketplace around livestreaming.


What Eightfold Growth Actually Means


The headline figure is significant: eBay Live GMV increased eightfold year over year in the second quarter of 2026.


GMV measures the value of merchandise sold through a marketplace. It is not the same as the marketplace operator's revenue, which depends on factors such as fees and other services.


An eightfold increase therefore indicates substantial growth in merchandise sales conducted through eBay Live, not an eightfold increase in eBay's overall revenue.


There is also an important limitation. Without knowing the starting GMV, the growth rate alone cannot establish the absolute size of eBay's live-shopping business.


A relatively small business can achieve an exceptionally high growth rate while still representing a modest portion of a much larger company's operations.


Nevertheless, the reported increases in viewers, watch time and items sold provide additional evidence that activity on the platform has been expanding.


Together, those indicators suggest eBay Live is gaining traction, even though the publicly reported figures do not yet provide a complete picture of its scale or profitability.


Why Wall Street Is Paying Attention


The growth has also begun attracting greater interest from financial analysts.


In October 2026, Morgan Stanley identified live commerce as a potential driver of eBay's performance and estimated that it could account for more than 40% of the company's growth.


That figure is an analyst estimate, not a metric disclosed by eBay, and should not be confused with the company's reported eightfold increase in eBay Live GMV.


The distinction matters because the two figures describe different things. One concerns growth in merchandise sold through a particular channel. The other reflects an outside assessment of how that channel may contribute to the broader business.


What makes the analysis notable is the attention itself.


Live shopping is increasingly being discussed not merely as an experimental feature or marketing activity, but as a possible contributor to growth at a mature ecommerce company.


For an established marketplace, developing new ways to engage buyers can be particularly valuable. Rather than depending entirely on attracting more search traffic, the business can create additional opportunities for customers to discover products and transact.


Why Collectibles Are a Natural Starting Point


Live commerce isn't equally suited to every product category.


Its advantages become clearer when the buying process benefits from demonstrations, explanations, interaction or a sense of discovery.


Collectibles are a particularly strong example.


Buyers of trading cards, memorabilia and other collectible items often care about details that are difficult to communicate through a limited number of product photographs.

Condition, rarity, presentation and seller credibility can influence purchasing decisions.


A livestream allows sellers to show merchandise from different angles, respond to questions immediately and create a shared experience around discovering individual products.


It also introduces an entertainment element.


A customer might join a livestream without planning to purchase a specific item, remain to watch the presentation and eventually discover something worth buying.


That differs from the traditional ecommerce journey, where customers often begin by searching for something they already know they want.


For categories built around collecting, enthusiasm and discovery, this difference can be meaningful.


A Different Way for Customers to Discover Products


Traditional ecommerce generally follows a familiar sequence: customers search for products, compare available options and make a purchase.


Live commerce introduces another path.


A customer can begin by watching a livestream, interact with the seller, discover a product and decide to purchase it during the same session.


The buying experience becomes less dependent on a customer arriving with a specific product in mind.


This creates opportunities for sellers to generate demand through presentations, demonstrations and audience relationships rather than relying exclusively on product searches.


It also changes the role of the seller.


In a traditional marketplace, the product listing carries much of the responsibility for communicating value. In live commerce, the person presenting the merchandise becomes an important part of the shopping experience.


Their product knowledge, communication skills, consistency and ability to build trust can influence how successfully the channel performs.


That creates new operational requirements. Running an effective live-selling operation involves more than switching on a camera. Inventory preparation, presentation, audience engagement, order management and fulfillment all need to work together.


For businesses considering live commerce, those practical requirements are just as important as the technology.


What eBay's Growth Means for Other Businesses


The lesson from eBay's reported growth isn't that every retailer should immediately start livestreaming.


Live commerce works best when the format adds something meaningful to the purchasing experience.


Products that benefit from demonstrations, personal explanations or real-time questions may be more naturally suited to the format than products customers prefer to purchase quickly through a conventional listing.


Businesses also need to consider whether they can sustain a consistent live schedule, prepare enough inventory and manage orders without creating unnecessary operational costs.


But eBay's results illustrate why the format deserves serious attention.


Live selling doesn't necessarily have to replace an existing ecommerce operation. It can become another sales channel, operating alongside a website, marketplace listings, social media and other customer acquisition activities.


For companies with suitable products and an audience that responds to interactive shopping, that creates an opportunity to test a different way of generating sales.


The most useful question isn't simply whether live commerce is growing. It's whether live selling can create a better buying experience for a particular customer and product category.


Live Commerce Is Moving Beyond Specialist Platforms


The growth of platforms dedicated to livestream shopping demonstrated that audiences were willing to purchase products through live video.


eBay's expansion points toward another stage of development: established marketplaces incorporating live selling into their existing businesses.


That distinction matters.


If live commerce becomes a standard capability within major ecommerce platforms, more sellers may be able to experiment with the format without moving their businesses to entirely separate marketplaces.


It could also make live shopping more familiar to consumers who already use those platforms for traditional purchases.


There are still unanswered questions about the size, profitability and long-term growth of eBay Live. The eightfold increase is a strong growth indicator, but it doesn't provide those answers on its own.


What it does show is that live shopping is gaining enough traction at an established ecommerce company to attract both operational investment and investor attention.


For businesses watching the evolution of ecommerce, that may be the more important development.


Live commerce is increasingly becoming another way to sell online, rather than an entirely separate category of online shopping.



Sources

Your Next Marketer Might Need to Code

October 26, 2026
Marketing is becoming more technical. As businesses adopt AI tools, automation and increasingly complex software, a new kind of specialist is emerging: the marketing engineer. For years, businesses have built marketing teams around familiar responsibilities: advertising, content creation, search engine optimization, social media and lead generation. Those responsibilities haven't disappeared. But the technology behind them has become increasingly complicated. Businesses now rely on advertising platforms, customer relationship management systems, email automation, website analytics, e-commerce software and AI tools. Making those systems work together is becoming an important part of marketing performance. That's where the marketing engineer comes in. What Is a Marketing Engineer? A marketing engineer combines marketing knowledge with technical skills. Traditional marketing specialists might develop a campaign strategy, create content or manage advertising budgets. A marketing engineer can help build the technical systems that make those activities more effective. That might involve connecting a CRM to advertising platforms, automating reporting, improving conversion tracking, integrating customer data or developing workflows using APIs and AI tools. The role connects marketing strategy with technical execution. Rather than relying entirely on separate developers, analysts and software specialists, businesses can use technical marketing expertise to bridge those functions. The Problem With Disconnected Marketing Systems Many businesses already have the technology they need. The challenge is getting it to work together. A company might use Google Ads to attract customers, Shopify to process orders, Klaviyo for email marketing and a CRM to manage relationships. Each platform collects information, but that doesn't necessarily mean the information is connected. Employees may still need to download reports, transfer leads between systems, update spreadsheets or manually compare campaign results against actual sales. Those disconnected processes can make marketing slower and more difficult to measure. Marketing engineering focuses on improving the connections between systems. When information moves reliably between platforms, businesses can reduce repetitive work and make decisions using more complete data. AI Search Is Changing How Businesses Get Discovered Technical marketing is also becoming more relevant as AI-powered search develops. Traditional search engine optimization focuses on helping websites appear in organic search results. But customers increasingly use AI-powered tools to research products, compare services and find answers. That has brought greater attention to two related concepts. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) focuses on making information clear, accessible and useful for answer-based discovery. Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) focuses on improving how content can be discovered, understood and potentially referenced by generative AI systems. These approaches overlap with established SEO practices, including technically accessible websites, useful content and clear information architecture. They do not guarantee inclusion in AI-generated answers. For businesses, the practical lesson is that website content and technical structure need to support more than traditional search rankings. Automation Can Eliminate Repetitive Marketing Work Another opportunity is workflow automation. Marketing departments often spend considerable time on tasks that don't require much creative judgment. Downloading reports, updating spreadsheets, transferring customer information, preparing campaign summaries and moving data between applications are common examples. Many of these activities can be automated when systems are properly connected. That doesn't eliminate the need for marketers. It can give them more time to focus on strategy, creative development, customer relationships and improving campaign performance. The objective isn't to automate everything. It's to identify which tasks can be handled more reliably and efficiently through technology. Better Data Can Lead to Better Marketing Decisions One of the biggest challenges in marketing is understanding which activities actually contribute to revenue. A campaign might generate thousands of impressions, hundreds of clicks and dozens of leads without producing profitable customers. Marketing engineers can help businesses connect advertising activity with customer and sales information. That includes improving conversion tracking, integrating data sources and identifying where potential customers drop out of the buying process. The goal is to move beyond reporting what happened on an advertising platform and develop a clearer understanding of what happened across the business. Does Your Business Need a Marketing Engineer? Not every company needs to hire a full-time technical marketing specialist. For smaller businesses, the first step is identifying where disconnected systems, manual processes or unreliable data are creating problems. Consider whether your advertising and sales platforms share information, whether campaign performance can be connected to revenue and whether repetitive reporting tasks could be automated. It is also worth reviewing whether your website is technically accessible, well structured and capable of answering the questions potential customers are asking. Depending on the complexity of the business, these improvements might be handled by an internal employee, an outside specialist or a combination of both. The important decision isn't necessarily who to hire. It's determining which capabilities the business actually needs. The Future of Marketing Is More Connected Creative thinking, compelling messaging and customer relationships remain essential to effective marketing. But those strengths increasingly depend on the technology supporting them. Businesses need systems that communicate, data that can be trusted and processes that allow teams to work efficiently. Marketing engineering represents one approach to bringing those capabilities together. The next competitive advantage may not come from producing more content or launching more campaigns. It may come from building a marketing operation where everything works together.

P&G Rebuilt Its Operations and Saved $600 Million. Here's How.

October 23, 2026
Procter & Gamble didn't simply outsource its support operations. It first rebuilt how they worked, then brought in outside partners. By 2008, its business-services transformation had generated approximately $600 million in cumulative savings. In the late 1990s, Procter & Gamble faced a problem familiar to businesses of almost every size: too many teams performing similar work. Finance, human resources and other support functions were spread across different parts of the company. That meant duplicated activities, inconsistent processes and unnecessary costs. Instead of continuing to expand those departments independently, P&G decided to fundamentally change how its business operated. First, P&G Fixed Its Internal Operations In 1999, P&G began bringing its support functions into a single global organization. Over the following three years, the company consolidated and standardized more than 70 services. It also established shared-service centers to support operations around the world. The goal was to replace fragmented systems with a more consistent and efficient operating structure. Importantly, P&G didn't begin by handing all these functions to outside companies. It first reorganized how the work was performed internally. That foundation would make the next phase possible. Then Came $4.2 Billion in Outsourcing Agreements In 2003, P&G entered into outsourcing partnerships valued at approximately $4.2 billion. Outside specialists took responsibility for selected operations, including IT infrastructure, payroll support, accounts payable and facilities management. Rather than maintaining every capability internally, P&G could rely on partners with specialized expertise, established systems and the scale to manage these activities. But it didn't outsource everything. The company retained control of functions it considered strategically important, including procurement, logistics, IT architecture and technology-driven innovation. This distinction was central to the strategy. P&G wasn't trying to eliminate internal operations. It was deciding which activities made sense to manage itself and which could be handled more effectively by partners. The Benefits Went Beyond Cost Savings One of the clearest examples came during P&G's integration of Gillette. According to P&G's business-services leadership, its established systems and outsourcing partners helped the company mobilize approximately 750 additional people within weeks. The business-services integration was completed in 15 months, a process its leadership believed could otherwise have taken three to four years. That flexibility mattered. P&G could draw on existing capabilities and outside resources without having to build every part of the operation from scratch. By 2008, the company's broader business-services transformation had produced approximately $600 million in cumulative savings. Those savings came from a combination of internal consolidation, standardized processes and selective outsourcing, not outsourcing alone. What Smaller Businesses Can Learn Most businesses aren't managing P&G's scale or negotiating multibillion-dollar agreements. But the underlying decision is surprisingly relevant. As companies grow, they often add employees and departments without reconsidering how work gets done. Over time, the same problems can emerge: duplicated tasks, fragmented responsibilities, rising administrative costs and employees spending too much time on activities outside their core expertise. The first step isn't necessarily outsourcing. It's understanding the operation. Which processes are inefficient? Which functions require direct internal control? Which activities could a specialist handle more effectively? Customer support, bookkeeping, administrative work, creative production and certain technology operations may be candidates for outside support, depending on the business. But outsourcing a poorly defined process can simply transfer the problem to someone else. P&G's experience illustrates a more disciplined approach: improve the system, identify which capabilities are strategically important and use external partners where they offer a genuine advantage. You Don't Have to Build Everything In-House The most important lesson from P&G's transformation isn't that every business should outsource more. It's that growth doesn't require owning and managing every operational function. By combining stronger internal processes with carefully selected partners, businesses can reduce unnecessary complexity and concentrate their resources where they create the most value. Sometimes the smartest way to grow isn't to build another department. It's to rethink how the work gets done. Sources McKinsey & Company, From internal service provider to strategic partner: An interview with the head of Global Business Services at P&G (2008). Procter & Gamble, 2008 Annual Report.