Welcome to Glossy’s Holiday Countdown, a bi-weekly guide to the new and noteworthy strategies brands and retailers are employing to capitalize on holiday spending.
Many brands have accepted that, to effectively compete this holiday season, last year’s marketing playbook won’t cut it.
More brands are gravitating toward live shopping, a growing channel that is set to play an outsized influence on shopping trends. According to data from eMarketer, livestream retail sales in the U.S. are set to reach nearly $20 billion this year. And annual spend per buyer on livestreams is growing by 23% to an average of $339.27.
Brands like Tarte Cosmetics, Crocs, Beachwaver and Gap are planning to make use of live shopping, particularly on TikTok, this holiday season. Tarte and Crocs plan to launch exclusive products just for TikTok live shopping, with Crocs’ exclusives including a Disney collaboration. TikTok has seen livestream shopping sales double in the first half of this year, and use of the hashtag #holidayshopping rose 263% year over year in October.
Ziad Bon, founder of Oudware, the 3-year-old fragrance retailer that sells imported fragrances from the Middle East, told Glossy that live shopping has become an integral part of his company’s holiday strategy. Oudware already has a fairly comprehensive strategy, hosting live shopping shows on weekdays for its 215,000 followers. From Black Friday through mid-December, Oudware will be increasing its live frequency, going live on TikTok Shop every day from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. EST. Oudware already makes more than $200,000 per month from live shopping on average and does more than $20 million in annual revenue. Its products sell for around $30-$100 per bottle.
Bon said it’s important for brands engaging in live shopping to have a plan for each live. Oudware’s live strategy is to spend the first hour of each live with what Bon called the “gift hotline,” where the team takes feedback and requests from viewers on which items and fragrances they want to see go on sale that evening. The next few hours are spent showcasing products and putting them up for sale through the regular TikTok Shop sales channel. The last hour or two of each live are reserved for auctions, a feature on TikTok Shop announced in 2025 and rolled out more broadly this year.
For Oudware, which sells about 3,000 products per day on TikTok Shop livestreams, saving the auctions for last is crucial. Live shopping conversion rates tend to be much higher than standard e-commerce, and consumers are increasingly drawn to auctions due to the possibility of lower prices. Adobe data from this year found that people are nearly 70% more likely to buy something during a live shopping stream if they see others bidding as well.
“Personally, I hate auctions,” Bon said. “A lot of our fragrance manufacturers don’t want their fragrances sold at auction, and the prices are often super low. But as a seller, it’s really hard to get engagement if you’re not doing auctions, since that’s what the customers want.”
Running auctions only at the end of the live has two purposes: It lets Oudware spend the majority of a livestream selling products at their regular prices and saves the auctions for when the live has the most viewers. More viewers means more bids, which means Oudware can sell products at auction for closer to the normal asking price.
Live shopping was a big success for brands last holiday season. TikTok Shop saw over $500 million in sales throughout the holiday period in 2025. Meanwhile, on Black Friday last year, Whatnot saw $75 million in sales in one day, tripling its previous peak from the year before.
TikTok itself is also introducing new features to support live shopping for the holidays. In the past year, big name brands and retailers like Fenty Beauty and Sephora have joined TikTok Shop. Products sold on a live will now have a visible badge if they’re part of TikTok’s Fulfilled by TikTok program (similar to Amazon Prime). Bon said the ability to ship product right after a live ends and have it arrive three days later is likely to be a big draw for customers. And, starting this fall, TikTok Shop will be working with Happy Returns to let shoppers return purchased items to any of Happy Returns’ 10,000 drop-off locations across the U.S.
“Live shopping has become one of the most engaging formats on TikTok Shop, and we expect even more brands to embrace it this holiday season as they look for new ways to connect with shoppers,” said Patrick Nommensen, president of strategic initiatives at TikTok Shop, in an email to Glossy. “What makes Live particularly compelling during the holidays is its ability to turn product discovery into an interactive shopping experience, allowing consumers to watch demonstrations, ask questions, and hear directly from brands and creators before making a purchase.”
Holiday news to know
- ‘Tis the season for holiday pop-ups. Brands popping up this week include LoveShack Fancy, which is opening a Holiday Shop in NYC’s SoHo on Friday, housing “enchanting gifts, festive treasures and nostalgic little delights.” Think: Pink Santas, custom calligraphy and gift wrapping, “Nutcracker” performances, photo moments and a hot chocolate bar. The brand will also be debuting its footwear collaboration with Hunter. Others opening pop-ups include MZ Wallace, on NYC’s Upper East Side, and Ralph Lauren, in London.
- AI shopping assistant launches are trending. Companies launching AI-powered shopping tools just in time for the holidays include Pinterest. On Thursday, the platform rolled out Pinterest Assistant, Compare and Wishlist. Through a conversational experience, Assistant answers open-ended holiday questions with visual inspiration and product suggestions. Compare offers a side-by-side view of similar products, making it easier for shoppers to choose based on details like price and reviews. And finally, Wishlist lets users compile coveted products and notifies them when inventory and price updates occur. Others launching AI shopping tools this week include J.Crew, with its new Style Advisor. Walmart, meanwhile, added new, holiday-focused features to its Sparky tool last week.
- Consumers plan to shop small. Today, American Express released its annual Shop Small Impact Study, based on a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults, including consumers and small business owners. Among key findings: 88% of consumers say they’re likely to shop small businesses this holiday season, marking the highest percentage since the first iteration of the survey in 2010. As for small business owners, 90% expect to use AI tools to support their holiday business. –Jill Manoff
