Exclusive: Live-shopping platform Whatnot has added a wholesale function

In the last five weeks, more than 400 sellers applied to sell in Whatnot’s wholesale category, Armand Wilson, vp of categories and expansion at Whatnot, told Modern Retail. But the groundwork for the category was laid months before, Wilson explained. “If you talk to our sellers, the No. 1 pain point that they have — pretty much universal of the category — is access to inventory and being able to scale,” he said. “We were already seeing sellers asking other sellers for bundles or items in bulk. It was happening organically.”

As Whatnot sees it, getting into wholesale allows the platform’s existing sellers to move inventory at faster speeds and allows buyers to procure more inventory to resell. What’s more, Whatnot gains access to a new type of user. “Other sellers who wouldn’t sell on Whatnot before — because they would break their fulfillment stream by selling individual items — are now able to leverage us, because they generally deal with suppliers and pallets in this way,” Wilson said.

All of this opens up opportunities for more revenue for Whatnot, a platform that launched in 2019 with backers including YouTube star Logan Paul and DJ Steve Aoki. Whatnot operates on a peer-to-peer basis, and its sellers host livestreams to sell everything from coins to golf clubs to clothing. Whatnot has exploded in popularity in the last few years, thanks to an increased interest in live shopping; it surpassed $3 billion in livestream sales in 2024 and raised $265 million in January 2025. What’s more, more people signed up for the platform in the last six months than in all of 2024, the company told Modern Retail. Whatnot makes an 8% commission on sales in the U.S. and a 6.67% + VAT commission in Europe.

To sell wholesale goods on Whatnot, sellers must undergo a vetting process, which requires uploading an ID. Later, they undergo checks to make sure they are sending the proper goods on time. When it comes to wholesale, sellers’ pallets must contain a minimum of 100 items, while case packs and bundles require a minimum of 10 items. Sellers aren’t required to list where they are getting their merchandise from, but many source products from liquidation sales, thrift stores or wholesale platforms like Faire, Hubventory or FashionGo.

Amanda McCall, a business owner in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, began selling on Whatnot in March. McCall, who has a brick-and-mortar fashion store called Lovish Boutique, held her first wholesale show earlier this spring. She used the occasion to offload inventory that wasn’t selling as quickly as in her store or had been in storage — “product I need to move, because the fashion world is so fast; every two weeks, something new is trending,” she told Modern Retail. Other pieces were from brands she’s carried in the past, but have since gone out of business.

McCall is hoping to hold more wholesale shows on Whatnot, particularly for the children’s category. She is eager for more Whatnot sellers to join the wholesale channel, especially because she’d like to source more items to sell in her store. “I’m on [Whatnot] from the moment I wake up in the morning until midnight [watching] livestreams,” McCall said. “I’m definitely looking for great deals on shoes and accessories, but a little bit of everything. If we could get more wholesalers to jump on board on Whatnot, that would be amazing.”

Sudip Mamzuder, retail industry lead at Publicis Sapient, called Whatnot’s move into wholesale “a very strategic investment,” saying he believes Whatnot is taking advantage of an “untapped space” in wholesale selling. While other wholesale platforms exist to sell B-to-B or B-to-C, Whatnot is unique in its streaming capabilities and more interactive interface, Mamzuder said. “If you look at the traditional wholesale marketplaces, they don’t have this offering,” he told Modern Retail.

Mamzuder also thinks there’s a lot of room for growth in Whatnot’s wholesale space. He floated, for instance, Whatnot giving sellers insights on optimal resale prices and other metrics, based on data Whatnot collects. He also does not see a risk of cannibalization by pursuing both wholesale and one-off products and collectibles. “They’re not disenfranchising the people who are already there,” Mamzuder said. “It’s just creating another avenue for people.”

Whatnot, for its part, says it’s optimistic about the growth of the wholesale category, especially since it hasn’t made wholesale the focus of large marketing efforts. Whatnot sent an email about wholesale to existing sellers, reached out to liquidators and made a category in the app, but most of the movement in wholesale has been organic so far, Wilson said.

“A lot of what’s happening [with wholesale] is people discovering it and getting a lot of value from it and then sharing it through word of mouth,” he explained.