'I made £100,000 of TikTok sales in one day': The business of live shopping

An important development from the financial markets: 'I made £100,000 of TikTok sales in one day': The business of live shoppingImage source, Daisy KellyImage caption, Daisy Kelly, on the left, founder of Glow For It, demonstrating her products live on TikTok Shop UKByEmma Simpson Business correspondentPublished25 minutes agoDaisy Kelly's business was inspired by a personal problem - for years she'd been pulling out her eyelashes. She hid her habit with lash extensions, but when beauty salons closed during Covid Daisy decided to create a serum to help her eyelashes grow back. She started Glow For It from her mother's kitchen table in 2020 while she was a student and now her business generates £6m a year in sales.

More than 40% of Daisy's sales come from TikTok Shop UK and increasingly from live streams. "I think live shopping gives people that connection and interaction that we're all craving... We actually generated over £100,000 revenue in one 12 hour TikTok live," says Daisy, now 27.

Economic Details

"It's categorically changed the trajectory of my business. "Image source, Daisy KellyImage caption, Daisy Kelly, founder of Glow For ItDaisy's business goes live from a studio for a minimum of six hours a day with different presenters interacting with shoppers, from showing off products to answering their questions. "It's like having 500 people in your shop," she says.

There are a host of platforms and marketplaces now offering livestreams connecting sellers and customers, from Instagram Live, YouTube Shopping, to eBay and Amazon Live. They're all different. Live shopping, it seems, is becoming part of everyday consumer behaviour for many.

According to new research from retail agency Savvy Marketing, 30% of shoppers surveyed said they'd bought something from a live shopping event. "The big retailers have got to grab hold of this," says Catherine Shuttleworth, CEO of Savvy. "It's grown from nothing to a huge thing really quickly.

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If you haven't got a strategy for live selling, you're going to miss out. "Image caption, Manny Malik of Malik ButchersTikTok Shop says its UK sales grew by more than 30% year-on-year in June, with live shopping the fastest-growing format. It says it now has more than 6,000 livestreams taking place every day.

At an event in the centuries old Covent Garden market, it hosted 20 small businesses with stalls who were also selling live to customers all over the UK. With nothing more than a smartphone, a lighting kit and a fridge full of fresh meat, halal butcher Manny Malik from Wolverhampton had around two hundred people tuning into his session. "Last week we did a TikTok live for three hours and we sold £8,000 worth of meat," he says.

It would normally take him three to four days to sell this amount in his family shop, Malik Butchers. They're now opening a second store in Stoke. TikTok, he says, is helping to drive his expansion.

Financial markets are tracking the development closely as investors assess the likely impact.