Fanatics Picks Snap, Google Vet Nick Bell to Lead Livestream Shopping Venture

Online sports platform Fanatics is entering the world of livestream shopping.

The company has hired Nick Bell, formerly of Snap and Google, to serve as CEO of Fanatics Live, Bell announced in a Thursday (Feb. 2). LinkedIn post.

“Fanatics Live will focus on transforming the digital shopping experience through personality and content-driven live commerce, aka livestream shopping,” Bell said.

PYMNTS has reached out to Fanatics for official confirmation but has not yet received a reply.

In an interview with CNBC Thursday, Bell said Fanatics Live is set to launch in the second half of the year, offering a digital shopping experience in which consumers can purchase trading cards and other collectibles.

“All collectors are fans, but not all fans are collectors,” he said, per the report. “We have a big opportunity to really grow the hobby by bringing in people who wouldn’t necessarily classify themselves as a collector today and open them up to this hobby by the way of entertainment and a community where they can hang around like-minded people.”

While popular in China, livestream shopping is still in its infancy in the U.S., an $11 billion industry compared to $600 billion in China, according to Bell’s LinkedIn post.

Still, he said in the post, “we see enormous upside for growth with analysts expecting livestream shopping to hit $35 billion in U.S. sales by next year.”

Other companies have already launched their own livestream ventures. For example, Best Buy and Walmart both formed partnerships last year with the live commerce platform TalkShopLive.

In the case of Best Buy, that meant debuting a service that let TalkShopLive customers pick up their purchases via Best Buy’s in-store pickup program.

“This is the first time in-store pickup is offered on a live shopping platform that is embeddable anywhere on the web,” the company said in December.

Walmart, meanwhile, picked TalkShopLive — along with four other companies — last fall to be part of its Innovation Partner program, designed to help advertisers access channels such as social feeds, entertainment and livestreaming during the holiday shopping season.

“When we’re in times like this, one of the great powers that livestream shopping has to offer is that in addition to purchasing the product, you’re providing an experience,” Bryan Moore, TalkShopLive’s CEO and co-founder, told PYMNTS last year.

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