Supergreat revealed via email Wednesday that it’s shutting down on Dec. 15.

The email states that most of the livestream beauty shopping app’s team will be joining Whatnot, which Supergreat called “the largest livestream shopping platform in the U.S. that connects buyers and sellers in real-time across 200+ categories – from beauty products and fashion, to collectibles like trading cards, comics, sneakers, and more.” Supergreat did not disclose the exact number of people moving to Whatnot. LinkedIn estimates it has 36 employees. An FAQ page linked in the company’s email says customers will be able to purchase through its app until early November. 

The email reads, “Whatnot shares our belief in the future of video-first commerce and would love to welcome the Supergreat community to their platform…We have loved building a special space on the internet together with you, and hope to see you in our next phase at Whatnot!”

Tyler Faux, whose professional background is in product management and engineering, and designer Dan Blackman founded mental health support app Huddle in 2017 before launching Supergreat in 2018 and sunsetting Huddle in 2019 to focus on Supergreat. Huddle helped inspire Supergreat. Faux and Blackman had observed members of the Huddle community actively sharing beauty tips and product recommendations with each other.

In Supergreat’s four years of operation, it built a community of over 200,000 users who created hundreds of thousands of videos reviewing over 40,000 products from a wide range of beauty brands, including established players such as Neutrogena and Wet ‘n’ Wild and emerging brands such as 19/99 Beauty, Kinfield, Kinship, Blume, Chillhouse, Siia Cosmetics and Wander Beauty. Its Live feature allowed users to watch and participate in interactive shopping and product giveaways from brands, creators and retailers. In 2021, Supergreat partnered with beauty specialty retailer Ulta Beauty on shoppable livestreams.

In an article in the publication Retail Brew from December 2021, Supergreat divulged that brand-hosted live sales events brought in roughly 600 to 700 concurrent viewers and that its highest-grossing sales event generated $60 per minute on air. The platform received a percentage of sales done on its app, and hosts earned a 10% commission on sales that occurred during their shows.

Supergreat raised more than $31 million in funding across several rounds, most recently a $20 million round in 2021 led by Canva backer Greenoaks, with involvement from Shopify. Whatnot raised a $260 million series D funding round in 2022 at a $3.7 billion valuation. 

“A platform like Supergreat is competing not just with traditional retailers and their content, but also with social media apps like TikTok.”

The nature of the arrangement between Whatnot and Supergreat is unclear. Access to Supergreat’s community and talent could be accretive to Whatnot, especially if obtained at a cheap price. Digital intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimated last year that Whatnot has approximately 2 million downloads. A majority of its users are male, and Supergreat’s primarily female user base could boost its female audience. Former Facebook product manager Grant LaFontaine and former GOAT senior product manager Logan Head founded Whatnot in 2019, and it describes itself as a “social marketplace where you can discover some of your favorite products like sports cards, sneakers, luxury handbags and women’s thrift.” 

In 2020 and 2021, when Supergreat closed its funding rounds, venture capital was flowing freely relative to the austere capital environment that’s characterized this year and last. There was reason for investors to be bullish on livestream shopping given its runaway success in China. In 2020, the Chinese livestream shopping market was valued at $171 billion, according to management consultancy McKinsey & Co. Apparel and fashion were the most commonly showcased in live commerce, at 36% percent share, and beauty held 7.6% share. 

Many commerce experts predicted the livestreaming fever would soon hit American consumers with the same fervor, and a number of livestream startups bowed during the pandemic. However, Odile Roujol, founder of seed-stage investment firm FAB Co-Creation Studio Ventures, asserts expectations were too high. She says, “COVID generated a boom in e-commerce sales in the U.S. The Chinese market, where livestreaming sales are huge, driven by gen Z and younger Millennials, is not comparable.” 

Fab Co-Creation Studio Ventures

FAB has invested in live shopping platforms that Roujol proclaims are “inventing new shopping experiences,” including BuyWith, a beauty and fashion live commerce app founded by digital content specialist Adi Ronen and software developer Eyal Sinai that has partnered with Walmart and Charlotte Tilbury, and Trendio, a livestreaming beauty app founded by former Amazon and CVS executive Alex Perez. Roujol says, “Whether it’s livestreaming or connected TV, generative AI and tech platforms will empower creators and brands to have personalized experiences.”

Neil Saunders, managing director, retail at data analytics and consulting company Global Data, believes livestream shopping’s main problem is that people generally still prefer to shop in person or on traditional e-commerce websites.

“Livestreaming can be entertaining, but the issue is that people who want to be entertained don’t always want to buy and vice versa,” he says. “A platform like Supergreat is competing not just with traditional retailers and their content, but also with social media apps like TikTok, which are more geared up to cater to entertain browsers. As Supergreat also only made money on brand partnerships and sales made via the platform, it is likely that its financials were somewhat limited. It’s a more difficult model to drive profit from that traditional beauty retail.”

The introduction of TikTok Shop enabling brands and creators to use short-form and live videos to sell goods directly on TikTok in the U.S. might have been the death knell for Supergreat. The social platform hopes to take on Amazon with its e-commerce capabilities, and there are beauty brands already reporting that TikTok Shop is generating significant sales for them. 

Not everyone has concluded that livestream shopping has a limited future in the U.S. The network CNBC reported in June this year that data insights firm Coresight Research projected that U.S. livestream sales would reach $32 billion by the end of 2023, but CEO Deborah Weinswig has since revised the projection upward, stating that “livestreaming sales in the U.S. could easily reach $50 billion this year.”