The 2025 holiday season is shaping up to be driven by AI-driven discovery, economic caution and performance-obsessed marketing, and retailers are facing a simple choice: compete on price or convert through influence. But what if they had a strategy that doesn’t just sell products, but builds trust, urgency and conversion in one seamless motion? The answer is live shopping. By tapping influencers, retailers are turning social media into the next wave of performance marketing, and they’re using the affiliate infrastructure to do so.
Consumers trust creators to meet them where they are, in real time. 71% of U.S. shoppers purchased a creator-founded product last year, and 56% of social media users say they’ll maintain their current level of social purchases through year’s end — even amid economic uncertainty and the on-again, off-again TikTok ban. The underlying principles of affiliate, performance-based compensation, trusted recommendation and scale, are more relevant than ever. What’s changing is how that value is activated.
From China’s Playbook to U.S. Storefronts
Live shopping, which took root in China, has become a mainstream retail channel. By 2026, it’s projected to reach ¥8.16 trillion ($1.2 trillion), up from ¥5.86 trillion in 2024. As of mid-2023, 600 million Chinese consumers regularly tuned into shoppable live streams.
The format’s power lies in its conversion rates. Traditional ecommerce converts 2% to 3% of browsers into buyers. Live commerce achieves 9% to 30%. In beauty and fashion, it can reach 70% during peak events. Taobao Live alone generates more than $3 billion in daily sales.
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The U.S. is catching up quickly. Live shopping already represents 18% of online purchases. In the U.S., sales are projected to grow to $68 billion by 2026. Platforms such as Ebay, Poshmark and TikTok have built live commerce directly into their ecosystems, making it accessible to mass audiences.
Retailers also are experimenting on their own turf. Walmart has hosted shoppable livestreams on TikTok and YouTube. Amazon continues to expand Amazon Live, featuring curated gift guides and daily deal streams. Nordstrom and Macy’s have piloted live events with stylists and influencers, blending entertainment with conversion-focused retail.
Globally, sales reached $682 billion in 2023 and are forecast to triple by 2030. The appeal is clear: live shopping combines entertainment, urgency and trust. Shoppers can ask questions, watch real-time demonstrations and purchase instantly, mirroring the in-store experience but with the convenience of online access.
Creator and Affiliate Gets a Glow-Up
In tandem, affiliate marketing continues to demonstrate its enduring significance as a powerful sales and marketing strategy. In the U.S.:
- Creator and affiliate performance marketing accounts for a substantial 16% of all ecommerce orders, underscoring its effectiveness in driving conversions and expanding market reach. Over 80% of advertisers actively utilize affiliate marketing in their promotional efforts. This indicates a high level of trust and reliance on a network of partners to promote products in exchange for a commission.
- Global spend on affiliate marketing is projected to surpass $31 billion by 2031, signifying sustained confidence in its ability to deliver measurable returns.
Affiliate models, which compensate creators and influencers for driving sales through tracked links or codes, are a natural fit for live shopping. The ecosystem now includes various types of affiliates, such as content creators, coupon sites, review sites and loyalty programs, each playing a crucial role in directing qualified traffic and generating sales for advertisers. As these landscapes evolve, retailers need infrastructure that unifies affiliate and app performance, connects network data to in-app journeys and enables creators to be compensated not just for traffic but for revenue.
Why TikTok’s Ahead of the Pack
Most third-party platforms and social apps struggle with enabling seamless checkout at scale. Off-site redirects, inconsistent deep linking, clunky payment processing and inaccurate attribution often lead to a drop in conversion and misaligned budgets — a hurdle TikTok has begun to overcome. Though TikTok treats these as transactions and not typical affiliate link‑based commissions, the seller still pays a commission, mirroring the affiliate model’s core: pay for performance. TikTok is teaching the market what works.
Although TikTok’s checkout model differs technically, the overall experience captures the founding principle of affiliate marketing: people (creators/hosts) are rewarded for sales they drive. This performance-driven approach seamlessly aligns with how TikTok engages users, turning passive scrolling into active discovery and purchases.
TikTok’s live shopping experience represents a fundamental shift in how consumers discover and make purchases. Users aren’t actively searching for something specific to purchase when they’re scrolling through the platform; they, instead, discover new brands and products organically through engaging and entertaining content, personalized feeds and authentic creator recommendations. That’s what makes TikTok users stop scrolling and start interacting.
And it works!
- 70% of users say they discover new brands and products on the platform.
- Three in four users are likely to buy something while using TikTok.
- One in four users search within the first 30 seconds of opening the app.
- 45% of users continue searching the app for more information after discovering something.
This is because brands can showcase their products, personality and values on the platform while the community builds interest and trust among consumers. The influencers users follow are seen as real, genuine people who are knowledgeable experts, often using products in “real life” contexts. This leads to purchase intent — and sometimes even shortens the journey from discovery to impulse buys and conversion.
As TikTok grows its live shopping model in the U.S., it represents the clearest case of how live commerce can embody affiliate mechanics at scale. What happens when Instagram, Amazon, and YouTube catch up?
From Impressions to Impact
Advertising is undergoing a fundamental shift. The traditional metric of impressions is being replaced by performance-based models where influence is measured in revenue, not reach. Live shopping sits at the center of this evolution, transforming creators into persuasive sellers who can engage, educate and close sales in real time.
For retailers, the holiday season is the perfect proving ground. Consumers are scrutinizing every dollar, so content must deliver value. Formats like “Top 10 Under $50” gift guides, product comparisons, tutorials and live Q&As help shoppers feel confident. Pair that with affiliate attribution and frictionless checkout and live shopping becomes one of the most powerful holiday tools of the year.
The Tipping Point is Here
The U.S. live commerce market is projected to grow at ~37% compound annual growth rate from 2025 to 2033. With creator-driven marketing embedded into Instagram, Amazon and YouTube, brands are shifting budgets from impressions to transactions.
The logic is compelling: why pay for reach when you can pay for revenue? Live commerce, with affiliate mechanics at its core, solves both engagement and ROI in one motion.
This isn’t a passing trend. It’s the next chapter of commerce, where performance is paramount and influence is monetized only when it converts. This holiday season will reward retailers that treat live commerce as a core revenue channel. Live shopping may be the most reliable helper of all.
Michael Jaconi is the Co-founder and CEO of Button, a mobile commerce platform that optimizes traffic for the worldʼs leading publishers, retailers and creators that depend on affiliate marketing. Button drives more than $1B in mobile commerce per month with a solution built with AI that is engineered to help Button customers generate more revenue. Prior to Button, Jaconi and a team of entrepreneurs built a digital currency monetization startup that was acquired by Rakuten, and once there, Jaconi led Rakutenʼs $100M investment in Pinterest, helping bolster Rakutenʼs position as one of the most innovative and aggressive global internet companies.
