Why eBay Is Doubling Down on Live Auctions

The fastest-growing live format in North American and European commerce isn't live streaming — it's live auctions. eBay's live commerce GMV grew roughly 7x year over year on an annualized basis in Q1 2026. Whatnot, a marketplace built entirely around live auctions, generated more than $6 billion of its $8 billion in 2025 GMV through live bidding. And in May 2026, Catawiki — Europe's largest curated auction marketplace — launched livestream auctions of its own. Shoplive lets you embed the same class of live auction capability those global platforms built, directly into your own store or app via SDK.

What is a live auction?

A live auction is a commerce format where bidding happens inside a live video broadcast, and viewers bid, win, and pay without leaving the screen. Where standard live commerce sells products at a price the seller sets, a live auction lets viewers set the price themselves, in real time.

The difference isn't the interface. It's the psychology of the purchase.

The last two rows are the point. A live auction makes single-unit inventory sellable on live — something standard live commerce simply can't do. Vintage goods, art, pre-owned luxury, graded cards: anything where no two items are alike.

Why are live auctions taking off in North America and Europe now?

Because three very different players arrived at the same answer at the same time. A global marketplace incumbent (eBay), a native live marketplace (Whatnot), and a traditional curated auction house (Catawiki) each converged on live auctions — and all three have published results.

eBay: why an incumbent is betting on live auctions

eBay reported $22.2 billion in Q1 2026 GMV, up 14% year over year, and named eBay Live as one of its growth drivers. The expansion pace is what matters. Rolling out from the US into France, Italy and Canada signals this is no longer a single-market experiment — it's becoming standard functionality. A company that has run auctions for decades is now investing to move those auctions inside video.

Whatnot: proof that live auctions can be the primary revenue channel

With Whatnot, the mix matters more than the scale. Roughly three quarters of GMV came from live auctions. Seller data points the same way: 53% say live drives the majority of their annual sales, up from 41% a year earlier, and sellers who go live daily reportedly earn 100–250x more than those streaming once or twice a month. Frequency is revenue. And while Whatnot started in trading cards, its fastest-growing 2025 categories were beauty (+791%) and electronics (+444%) — evidence this format isn't limited to collectibles.

Catawiki: adding live to auctions that already work

Catawiki launched livestream auctions in May 2026, and the approach is notably pragmatic. Rather than reinventing the auction, it converts only the final 90 minutes of selected auctions into a seller-hosted live stream. Buyers who prefer to bid quietly carry on as before; only the closing tension moves into video. It started with Pokémon cards and will expand into fashion and toys. If you already run auctions, layering live onto the closing window — with no platform overhaul — is the most realistic place to start.

Why do live auctions convert better than standard live broadcasts?

Because they turn viewers from watchers into competitors. Four commerce metrics behave differently.

1. Time on stream: viewers leave a standard broadcast once the product pitch ends. In an auction they can't leave until the lot closes. Anyone who has placed a bid needs to see the outcome, so the exit point disappears.

2. Conversion: a bid is a far stronger commitment than adding to cart. A viewer who bids has already decided to buy; winning leaves only the payment step. That's why conversion rate rises structurally.

3. No price ceiling: with fixed pricing, the seller's price is the revenue ceiling. An auction lifts the price to what the market will actually pay. The scarcer the item, the wider that gap.

4. Community: competitive bidding plus chat creates relationships between viewers. A regular schedule builds a fandom, and that fandom becomes the next session's bidders.

Why is WebRTC essential for live auctions?

First, the term. WebRTC stands for Web Real-Time Communication — a technology for exchanging audio, video and data in near real time directly in a web browser, with no separate app or plugin required.

It's essential because WebRTC is effectively the only technology that delivers both the sub-second latency and the two-way communication an auction demands. If you check only one thing when evaluating a live auction solution, check this. Everything else can be built later; the streaming protocol is an architectural decision you cannot swap out afterward.

Why is HLS slow?

Most live commerce runs on HLS (HTTP Live Streaming). HLS splits video into file segments a few seconds long. A segment can't be sent until it's complete, and the player buffers several segments so playback doesn't stall. Those two things together produce 6–30 seconds of latency. Low-latency HLS shortens the segments, but 2–5 seconds is its floor.

HLS is also playback-only. Video travels down to the viewer, but a viewer's bid doesn't travel back up the same path.

An auction needs both. The moment the host calls "we're at thirty thousand" has to reach the screen instantly, and a viewer's bid has to appear on everyone else's screen immediately for competitive bidding to function at all.

HLS vs. LL-HLS vs. WebRTC

One caution. Plenty of solutions advertise "low latency" but actually run LL-HLS. If a bid placed three seconds before close lands on screen five seconds later, the viewer is bidding on an auction that already ended. So the question to ask isn't "do you support low latency" — it's "is this WebRTC-based, and what is the measured latency?"

Why is WebRTC hard to implement?

WebRTC was designed for one-to-one video calls. Scaling it to a broadcast watched by thousands or tens of thousands means solving four problems yourself.

• You can't use a CDN. With HLS, a CDN copies finished segments to tens of thousands of viewers. WebRTC maintains an individual connection per viewer, so you have to build and operate media servers (SFU) that relay all of them. More concurrent viewers means more servers.

• Quality has to be tuned per connection. Network conditions differ for every viewer. But drop the quality too far and buyers can't assess the item, which defeats the purpose of the auction.

• Dropped connections must recover instantly. Leaving the app or switching between Wi-Fi and cellular breaks the connection. Slow recovery means missed bids.

• Some environments block the connection outright. Corporate firewalls and similar setups require relaying through a TURN server.

In short, "we support WebRTC" and "we run WebRTC reliably at commercial scale" are entirely different claims. That gap is where live auction vendors separate.

Can you build an eBay Live–style auction on your own store with Shoplive?

Yes. A live auction needs six technical requirements that standard live commerce solutions don't cover, and Shoplive provides all six. A live auction isn't a bid button layered over video — it's a real-time transaction system where money changes hands second by second. In a standard broadcast, latency or a dropped frame costs you viewing experience. In an auction, the same fault costs you disputed sales and refunds.

These six are what to verify with any vendor — and what Shoplive already ships.

Miss any one of the six and a live auction either can't run or starts generating disputes. Shoplive delivers them not as separate options but as one complete auction cycle: list the lot, take live bids, close automatically, confirm the winner, hand off to payment — with no break in the chain, on top of WebRTC streaming and PIP by default. The closing minutes are when viewership peaks and the highest bids arrive at the same time, so holding resolution through that window feeds directly into the final price.

Shoplive has provided live commerce solutions to more than 200 brands across 20-plus countries since 2020, with 320 million cumulative viewers and over 1,000 broadcasts a day. WebRTC isn't a pilot here — it's running in production every day.

There are plenty of live commerce solutions. Why Shoplive?

Because live auctions require three things at once, and almost nothing sits at that intersection.

1. Sub-second WebRTC streaming — the auction only works if the host's call and the screen agree.

2. The full auction transaction — eligibility, concurrent bids, winner determination, payment handoff. A live auction is a transaction feature, not a video feature.

3. An SDK that embeds in your own store and app — keep customers in your service and the customers, transaction data and brand stay with you (D2C live commerce).

Most options on the market deliver only one of the three.

Shoplive delivers all three in a single SDK. What global platforms built internally at considerable cost, you can add to your own service through an SDK integration rather than a development project.

Operational features

Beyond the six requirements, Shoplive ships the operational tooling you need to actually run broadcasts. Implementation details are in the auction operations guide and the auction integration docs.

Which industries should adopt live auctions?

Anyone selling items where no two are alike or items with a fandom. The harder a product is to price on a fixed tag — or the more that fixed tag leaves on the table — the bigger the gain.

If you already run auctions, the Catawiki approach described above — putting live only on the closing window — is the lowest-risk way in.

How do you get started with live auctions?

Four stages: define auction policy, integrate the SDK, rehearse operations, then commit to a regular schedule. Time spent on policy and rehearsal pays back more than time spent on integration.

1. Define auction policy: fix your starting price, bid increment and lot duration; bidding eligibility (membership tier, identity verification); the payment deadline and penalty for non-payment; and how unsold lots are handled. The issue that bites most often in live auctions isn't technical — it's winners who don't pay.

2. Integrate: embed the Shoplive SDK in your app or web store and control bidding rights with canBid at authentication. Wire the buy-button event fired on a win into your existing checkout and order systems.

3. Rehearse operations: run a full rehearsal covering how fast the host calls bids, the closing countdown script, and what happens when a lot goes unsold. In an auction, the host's skill moves the final price directly.

4. Commit to a schedule: as Whatnot's data shows, frequency is revenue. Don't treat it as a one-off event — fix the day and time and build a fandom.

Frequently asked questions

Q. How is a live auction different from standard live commerce?
A. Standard live commerce is a broadcast selling products at a price the seller sets, while a live auction is a broadcast where the price is determined by viewers bidding against each other in real time. A live auction can sell single-unit rarities, and because viewers stay until the lot closes, both time on stream and conversion rise together.

Q. What is the most important technical requirement for a live auction?
A. WebRTC-based sub-second two-way streaming. If the price on screen diverges from the price on the server, you get disputed sales, so latency has to stay under one second — and WebRTC is effectively the only technology that delivers that. Everything else can be built later, but the streaming protocol is an architectural decision you can't swap out afterward, so check it first.

Q. Can't you run a live auction on low-latency HLS?
A. Not adequately. Standard HLS carries 6–30 seconds of latency and LL-HLS 2–5 seconds, so a bid placed three seconds before close that lands on screen five seconds later is a bid on an auction that has already ended. Many solutions advertise "low latency" while actually running LL-HLS, so ask whether it is WebRTC-based and what the measured latency is.

Q. Are all WebRTC-capable solutions equivalent?
A. No. WebRTC was designed for one-to-one communication, so scaling it to large broadcasts means operating SFU media server infrastructure instead of CDN caching, plus per-viewer network adaptation, mobile reconnection, and NAT and firewall traversal. "We support WebRTC" and "we run it reliably at commercial scale" are different claims — in particular, check whether resolution holds through the closing window when traffic peaks.

Q. Can live auctions be added to our own app or store?
A. Yes. Shoplive's live auction ships as an SDK that embeds in your app or web store, so auctions run inside your own service without sending customers to an external platform. Control bidding rights with canBid at authentication, and wire the buy-button event fired on a win into your existing checkout and order systems.

Q. Which products suit live auctions?
A. One-of-a-kind items and items with a fandom suit them best — collectibles and trading cards, luxury and watch resale, art, limited-edition sneakers, fan merchandise, used cars, source auctions for agriculture and seafood, and B2B carryover stock. On Whatnot, beauty grew 791% and electronics 444% year over year in 2025, showing the format is expanding well beyond collectibles.

Q. We already run an auction service. How should we start?
A. We recommend the Catawiki approach. Catawiki didn't change the whole auction — it converted only the final 90 minutes of selected auctions into a seller-hosted live stream, and one in four lots on live now sells during the broadcast. Because the existing bidding flow stays intact and live sits only on the closing window, the risk is low.

If you're evaluating live auctions, get in touch with Shoplive. We'll work through auction policy design and integration for your industry and product mix. New to live commerce generally? Start with our complete guide to live commerce.