eBay Live: when sales meet live streaming. Here's how eBay's new service works

This year marks 25 years of eBay in Italy, and the celebrations have already begun with the debut of eBay Live, the live shopping section of the US e-commerce giant, which launched on Tuesday, February 3rd, with its first live sale from Base in Milan in collaboration with Mirmex. Described by the company as "one of the most important launches in recent years and a new era of online shopping in Italy," eBay Live is a new platform available on the Italian site that allows users to organize live broadcasts during which they can offer products to the public through various specially designed formulas. 

The phenomenon of live shopping is not entirely new to the Italian public: although eBay is the first marketplace to introduce it in Italy (you can see it in action here), it has been available in the USA and other European countries for several months, and in Asia, live sales already account for 35% of online shopping, transforming some sellers into social stars. The emergence of this phenomenon, which receives a kind of "institutionalization" in Italy through eBay, confirms the relevance of two trends, also on a commercial level: the omnipresence of the video format and the recognition of niches. The classic marketplace of photos and listings is no longer enough, and so if the public is used to starting a video after unlocking their phone screen, eBay also adapts to a more social form. 

Sellers become streamers. On the other hand, streamers have been sellers for a long time, if not directly of products, then always and in any case of their brand. And if, on the one hand, it is another step forward in the pervasive capacity of capitalism in every sphere of society, on the other hand, live shopping is paradoxically a more honest formula: here it is evident that someone is selling something; there is no one pretending to like their audience to make money fall out of their pockets. Regarding the role of niches, eBay Live's push towards these communities (now large enough to have swallowed up comic conventions and similar events, although still considered "niches") is just another confirmation of the popularity of nerd collecting. Pokémon cards are now a safe haven, as well as a form of investment certainly no more risky than Bitcoin. 

The over 2,000 people connected on Tuesday evening to watch and secure cards from a 1st Edition Limited Run of Pokémon, opened and unboxed live for the occasion, are further confirmation of public interest. Various formulas are available to sellers, with timed auctions or those that restart in case of last-second bids, in addition to classic fixed-price offers. The subtle pleasure of watching an "unboxing" video meets the thrill of being able to quickly buy a card with a click.

In addition to events that individual sellers can organize and promote, eBay also has in mind events that may involve talents and influencers in real online entertainment and sales shows. And ultimately, when you think about it, it's a big comeback: that of infomercials that have survived the technological leap and reappear with a new language and new faces (although I wouldn't be surprised to see Mastrota appear before summer, to be honest).