Live shopping has always sounded like one of those ideas that should work instantly. Put a real person on camera, let shoppers ask questions in real time, show the product from every angle, and make buying easy while the excitement is still there. On paper, it makes perfect sense.
In the U.S., though, live commerce has not had a smooth rise. American shoppers were already comfortable with search bars, product filters, static product pages, and fast checkout. For a long time, that seemed good enough. The idea of stopping to watch someone sell a product live felt unfamiliar to many consumers and, for some brands, a little too experimental.
That is where Liyia Wu comes in. Through ShopShops, she has been part of a broader push to make livestream retail feel less like a novelty and more like a practical, engaging way to shop. Instead of treating live shopping as a flashy add-on, her approach points to something more thoughtful. The goal is not just to broadcast products on video. It is to create a shopping experience that feels more human, more interactive, and better suited to how people actually discover and evaluate products online.
Why live shopping has been a tougher sell in the U.S.
The U.S. e-commerce market grew up around convenience. People learned to type in what they wanted, compare prices, skim reviews, and check out quickly. That shaped expectations. Shopping online became less about experience and more about efficiency.
Live shopping asks consumers to behave differently. Instead of going straight to a product page, they are invited into a live moment. They watch, comment, react, and sometimes stay longer than they planned because the format is part shopping, part entertainment, and part conversation. That is a different habit to build.
There is also the trust factor. In some markets, livestream commerce became a normal extension of how consumers already interacted with creators, sellers, and marketplaces. In the U.S., brands had to prove that livestream shopping was not just hype. Shoppers wanted to know whether it was useful, whether it saved time, whether it helped them make better decisions, and whether it was worth showing up for in the first place.
That hesitation helps explain why the format has taken longer to settle in. It is not that Americans dislike video or social commerce. They clearly do not. It is that live shopping works best when it feels natural, and making it feel natural in the U.S. takes more than just turning a camera on.
Who Liyia Wu is and what ShopShops set out to build
Liyia Wu is the founder and CEO of ShopShops, a company built around the idea that shopping online does not have to feel distant or flat. From early on, ShopShops leaned into livestream shopping as a way to connect people with products through hosts, conversation, and real-time discovery.
That positioning matters. ShopShops was not built to mimic a standard e-commerce storefront with a few video features added on the side. It was built around live interaction itself. The experience centers on hosts who show products, answer questions, react to shopper comments, and create a sense of immediacy that ordinary product pages often cannot match.
In categories like fashion, beauty, accessories, and lifestyle products, that difference matters even more. People are not always shopping with a precise keyword in mind. Often they are exploring. They want to see how something looks in motion, how it fits into a style story, or why someone with product knowledge is excited about it. ShopShops sits inside that discovery process.
How ShopShops makes live shopping feel more human
One reason traditional e-commerce can feel cold is that it strips out most of the human context that helps people make buying decisions in person. In a store, a shopper can ask a question, look at the item in better light, get a quick recommendation, or compare one option to another with someone standing right there.
ShopShops tries to bring some of that back.
The live host is a big part of that equation. A host can hold up the product, zoom in on details, talk through fit or materials, compare colors, answer specific questions from the chat, and respond to what shoppers are actually curious about. That creates a sense of clarity that static product photography often cannot deliver.
It also makes the shopping experience feel less transactional. Instead of being left alone with a grid of thumbnails, shoppers are participating in something active. They are not just scrolling. They are reacting, asking, deciding, and sometimes discovering products they would never have searched for on their own.
That is one of the strongest arguments for live shopping in the U.S. market. It is not simply a new content format. It is a way to reduce uncertainty and make online buying feel more informed.
Why creator-led commerce matters to the model
A lot of e-commerce brands already work with creators, but creator-led commerce is different from traditional influencer marketing.
In a typical influencer campaign, the creator introduces the product, posts content around it, and sends traffic toward a brand or marketplace. The interaction is often one-directional. The audience sees the recommendation, but the selling experience still happens somewhere else.
Live shopping changes that dynamic. The creator or host is not only creating awareness. They are shaping the purchase moment itself. They answer objections in real time, explain product details, respond to hesitation, and help move the shopper from interest to action without breaking the flow.
That makes personality and trust much more important. A strong live host is not just someone with an audience. They need presence, product familiarity, communication skills, and the ability to keep the energy up while staying credible. That is why creator-led commerce on a platform like ShopShops feels closer to assisted selling than to simple content promotion.
For U.S. consumers, that can be a powerful bridge. Many shoppers are already used to discovering products through creators on social platforms. Live commerce builds on that behavior, but gives it more depth. Instead of a polished recommendation that ends with a link in bio, shoppers get a real-time experience that feels closer to a conversation.
How Liyia Wu is adapting live commerce for U.S. consumer behavior
One of the most interesting parts of Liyia Wu’s approach is that it does not seem to rely on the assumption that the U.S. market will copy another region overnight. That is an important distinction.
American shoppers tend to adopt new shopping behavior when it fits cleanly into habits they already have. That means live commerce in the U.S. has to feel intuitive, entertaining, and genuinely useful. It cannot survive on novelty alone.
That is where ShopShops appears to be selective. Live shopping tends to work best in categories where demonstration matters, where hosts can add context, and where the shopper benefits from seeing more than a polished product photo. Fashion is a natural example. Beauty, accessories, collectibles, and other discovery-heavy categories also fit this model because the presentation itself helps shape demand.
This kind of category focus matters. It makes the value of live shopping easier to understand. A shopper may not need a livestream to buy something routine, but they may absolutely want one when buying a statement piece, a luxury item, a beauty product, or something with nuance that photos alone do not fully capture.
By focusing on the right use cases, Wu’s strategy helps live commerce feel less forced. Instead of asking the entire U.S. market to change at once, it meets shoppers where live selling is already most useful.
The role of retail partners in making the format more credible
New shopping behavior often becomes easier to trust when familiar retail names are involved. That is another reason partnerships matter so much in this space.
When a platform like ShopShops works with recognizable retailers, it does more than add inventory. It gives the model more legitimacy. It signals that live shopping can sit inside real retail operations rather than outside them as a side experiment.
That matters in the U.S., where many brands are still deciding how livestream retail fits into e-commerce, social commerce, merchandising, and customer acquisition. A retailer partnership helps show that live selling can be part of a broader strategy instead of a disconnected campaign.
It also helps consumers. Familiar retail brands reduce friction. Shoppers may be more willing to engage with a livestream if they recognize the retailer, understand the product mix, or already associate the name with quality and trust.
This is where ShopShops’ work with retail partners stands out. It suggests a model where live shopping does not compete with retail infrastructure so much as extend it. The livestream becomes another touchpoint, another discovery channel, and another way to move inventory through a more engaging format.
How live shopping changes product discovery
Traditional e-commerce is usually built around intent. The shopper knows what they want, types it in, filters the results, and narrows the list.
Live shopping adds something different. It creates space for discovery before intent is fully formed.
That shift matters because many purchases do not begin with a precise query. Sometimes shoppers are browsing for inspiration. Sometimes they are open to being persuaded. Sometimes they need context before the product becomes interesting.
A livestream can do that quickly. A host can show how a product looks when worn, explain why one version is selling faster than another, compare options side by side, and react to the questions the audience is asking right then. That compresses the discovery process. The shopper learns, evaluates, and decides in one place.
For brands and retailers, that opens up a different kind of commerce opportunity. Instead of relying only on search visibility or paid traffic, they can create moments that generate demand through presentation, personality, and interaction. That is especially useful in categories where storytelling, styling, quality cues, and social proof help drive conversion.
In that sense, ShopShops is not only selling products. It is creating an environment where product discovery feels more alive.
What challenges still stand in the way
Even with the right model, live shopping in the U.S. still faces real obstacles.
The first is behavior. Consumers do not change shopping routines overnight. Many people still see live commerce as something interesting to watch rather than a normal place to buy.
The second is execution. A livestream is only as strong as the host, the pacing, the product selection, and the ability to keep people engaged. Brands that treat live shopping like a simple broadcast often miss what makes it work. It needs energy, responsiveness, and a real sense of presence.
There is also the issue of scale. Authenticity is one of the format’s biggest strengths, but scaling authentic live experiences is not easy. The more polished or scripted the experience becomes, the more it risks losing the very quality that makes it compelling.
And then there is the internal question many brands still face. Is livestream retail a marketing channel, a sales channel, a creator program, a merchandising tool, or a customer engagement play? In reality, it can be all of those at once, but that can make ownership inside an organization harder to define.
These are not minor issues. They are part of the reason live shopping has taken time to find its footing. But they also explain why the companies that do figure it out may end up with a durable advantage.
What Liyia Wu’s approach says about the future of U.S. live commerce
Liyia Wu’s work with ShopShops points toward a version of live commerce that feels more grounded than the early hype cycle suggested. Rather than assuming consumers will embrace livestream retail simply because it is new, the model leans on something more durable: human interaction.
That may be the clearest signal about where the space is headed. Live shopping in the U.S. is more likely to grow when it solves real e-commerce problems. When it answers product questions faster, makes discovery easier, gives creators a more direct selling role, and helps brands make online shopping feel less flat, it becomes more than a trend.
It becomes useful.
And in the U.S. market, usefulness tends to matter more than buzz.