eBay Tests “Streaming As A Service” To Scale Live - But Will Sellers Buy In?
eBay is expanding its Live ambitions with new “streaming as a service” pilot program designed to connect sellers with livestream hosts, allowing them to participate in Live commerce without ever stepping in front of the camera.
The move signals eBay is not just investing in Live, it’s actively working to remove barriers that have slowed seller adoption. But it also raises a bigger question: is eBay solving a participation problem, or trying to push more sellers into a format many aren’t convinced fits their business?
eBay Live has been available in the US for almost 4 years and in the UK since 2024, but the company has accelerated its push in recent months - expanding into new categories and geographies as competition from platforms like Whatnot and TikTok intensifies.
That increased visibility has come with more aggressive placement across the site, which has also brought more attention to the feature from sellers and buyers who aren’t necessarily interested in engaging with it.
Some sellers say they feel shut out by the selective application process, while others simply have no desire to participate in livestream selling and worry that their traditional listings could lose visibility as eBay continues to push Live through the homepage, search, and ads.
Liz Morton
During a recent webinar with Auctiva, eBay Live fashion business development leader Emma Munguia revealed the company is preparing to roll out a host-matching pilot program within the next several weeks.
For sellers who don’t want to go on camera or don’t have the time or resources to run a stream, inventory can be paired with a third-party host who handles the livestream, while the seller focuses on sourcing and fulfillment. That lowers the barrier to entry, but it also means handing off part of the selling experience to someone else.
Munguia said eBay believes the future of commerce is live and that livestream shopping will become the new standard in many categories, revealing that ~57.3M of eBay's current ~135M Active Buyers are using the feature.
It’s not clear how many of those users are actually buying versus just browsing or watching, which makes it harder to gauge how much incremental demand Live is creating.
She also outlined the typical onboarding requirements for Live, which include having an eBay business account, inventory, the space and equipment to stream, and someone to host. For sellers who don’t have that last piece in place, eBay is positioning this pilot as a way to bridge the gap.
Munguia emphasized that point during the webinar, saying:
“We do have a pilot program that we are launching more fully in the next six to eight weeks for host matching and ‘streaming as a service’ partners… so even if you feel like ‘I don’t have the personality for this’ or ‘we’re a small team,’ don’t let that stop you from investigating. We have solutions that can help make that more feasible.”
Details about the streaming as a service offering, including any consignment fees or revenue sharing, were not provided, but eBay’s existing consignment service with partner Linda’s Stuff could offer a model for how this might work, typically making participation easier while introducing tradeoffs around margins and control.
Liz Morton
Beyond the pilot, eBay is also experimenting with ways to build out a pool of Live talent that isn’t tied directly to inventory ownership. Initiatives like the “Lights, Camera, Bid” competition for Goldin Auctions suggest the company is thinking about hosts as a distinct layer within the ecosystem, separate from the sellers supplying products.
Liz Morton
At the same time, the broader push toward Live continues to draw mixed reactions. Munguia noted eBay is driving significant traffic to these events, particularly from high-visibility placements across the platform. That exposure has not landed well with everyone.
Recent homepage takeovers and increased Live placements in search and the app have prompted a wave of complaints from users who feel the experience is becoming cluttered or disruptive. Some have questioned why livestream content is being surfaced so prominently when it isn’t relevant to what they are trying to buy.
Liz Morton
Even after the event ended, many users taking to the eBay community forum to air their frustrations about how aggressively Live is being pushed on both the desktop and app experiences.
Just a few recent examples:
Seriously. I've seen eBay make a lot of bad decisions since it started, but eBay Live is one of the most annoying. I don't want to go to the site or open the app only to find obnoxious live streams. This isn't TikTok or YouTube.
At a minimum there needs to be a way to completely disable this waste of screen space and bandwidth. It would be better to eliminate it entirely, but I don't expect the executives to back down from a bad thing. They almost never do.
How to opt out of the constant influx of ebay live ads?
These are so obnoxious. How do I remove them or opt out from having them in my ebay app? And they show up like ugly banners in the middle of searches too, searches for items that have nothing to do with these. It’s soooo tiresome.
Is there a way to opt out or not see them? I don’t collect coins! I don’t play video games! I don’t gamble! None of this! Yet stuff like this is constantly in my app and searches. Ugh. It makes the app and the site cumbersome and filled with stuff we’re not looking for. I just want to opt out if someone knows how and if that’s an option.
Those reactions point to a growing disconnect between eBay’s push to normalize Live shopping and the expectations of users who still view the platform primarily as a traditional marketplace.
The “streaming as a service” pilot is a logical step if the goal is to scale Live more quickly. Expanding the pool of hosts while making it easier for sellers to participate could increase both inventory and event frequency.
Whether that translates into broader adoption is less certain. For many sellers, the hesitation isn’t about tools or support, it’s about whether livestream selling fits the way they want to run their business.
If that underlying skepticism holds, lowering the barrier to entry may not be enough to drive meaningful adoption.
Auctiva will be co-hosting another webinar exclusively about eBay Live on June 24, 2026, so hopefully we'll get some more details about the streaming as a service offering then.
In the meantime, let us know in the comments below if you would take part in this pilot program to get your inventory sold by a partner host on eBay Live!
