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Kim K’s livestream averaged $0.19 sales per viewer. Is “live shopping” even working in the West?
Posted by on December 29, 2025 at 5:59 pmLately I saw the numbers from Kim K’s recent livestream: around 670k viewers and about $127k in sales. Rough math, that’s roughly $0.19 in sales per viewer.
I’ve always been curious why live shopping feels so lukewarm in the US/Europe compared to Asia or make it more specific, China.
Over there, going live is basically the default way creators monetize, from top KOLs to tiny sellers, everyone is selling something on stream.
The style is also totally different. In China/SEA, the big live commerce rooms are built like high-pressure TV shopping: constant CTAs, time-limited offers, stacked coupons, crazy bundles, etc.
Kim’s stream felt the opposite, it was more like a chill beauty hangout with some product links on the side. Fun to watch, but it didn’t feel like a hardcore shopping stream at all.
It makes me wonder:
– Do people here still treat livestreams mainly as entertainment, not as a store?
– Or is it more about the format: not enough urgency, no real “must buy now” offers, products not that compelling?
– For anyone who’s actually run live shopping tests: what kind of revenue per viewer / conversion rate would you consider “good” in your market?
Curious what you guys here see it: is live commerce in the West just in the early experiment phase, or is this simply not how we like to shop?
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1 Reply
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That’s a great question. I’m in the West, and I would say for me personally I don’t like to shop that way, but I’m curious to see what others think. I do think it’s still being developed here.
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There’s a chinese lady in my feed who keeps talking about the clothes for sale, with a crew changing them live, each piece shown for under a minute, she just steps in and out, raises her arms, etc. So bizarre.
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I think the cultural difference is pretty obvious, but more importantly, kim k is not a niched down influencer, nor has she established herself as a livestream sales personality. Her doing a live stream where she sells crap is not really aligned with her brand. She has massive gravity so it makes sense that the majority of viewers were there more to watch her as fans rather than buy from her.
Besides that, south asian and chinese culture is just much more trend based and communal than western culture. We prefer to have a unique style and do dumb shit for attention and validation, while in Asia it’s more common to find safety in the herd.
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Good question. I don’t think the issue is the creator or even the audience size — it’s the **intent** people bring to the livestream.
In the West, most people join lives to *hang out*, not to *shop*. In China, people open a live already expecting to buy. That mindset shift is huge.
Also, $0.19 per viewer isn’t terrible if you see it as **top-of-funnel**, not pure sales. A lot of the real value probably comes later: retargeting, email/SMS, future drops. The problem is we judge live shopping like it should convert immediately.
My take: live commerce here only works when
* the product solves a clear, urgent problem
* the live is built around **demonstration + urgency**, not vibes
* or it’s part of a bigger system (content → live → follow-up)Without that, it stays entertainment with links — not a store.
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Not all livestream sales happen “live” —post event media, leveraging the assets from the livestream, are critical to success. Even in Asian markets this is the case. But to answer your question more directly: livestream hasn’t broken through in “Western” markets, though WhatNot seems to be doing consequential sales. On TikTok, creator content is much more effective vs Lives.
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