Speaker: Tom Verrilli (Chief Product Officer, Whatnot)

Speed has always been core to selling on Whatnot—and that’s not changing. This year, we’re focused on making the experience faster and better. You heard from Tom on how we’re building with sellers at the center: how your feedback shapes what we ship, why listings are playing a bigger role in discovery and conversion, and what improvements are coming to help you move quickly and grow your business.

Key Takeaways:

• Sellers are part of how we build product: We experiment, learn, and iterate quickly based on real seller behavior—which means change is constant, and the goal is finding what works for your business.

• Bad listings are bad for everyone: they lead to poor conversion, lost buyers, increased refunds, and higher shipping costs. 20M people downloaded Whatnot in 2025. 91% of new buyers made their first purchase on a detailed, complete listing—new buyers don’t trust “random pulls”.

• We’re building faster and easier ways to list: more detail, more trust, more purchases, less effort. Soon, listing templates let you set brand, size, condition, and color with simple buttons while live; a new carrier adjustments dashboard will flag issues early, reducing shipping costs; with more to come.

Next Steps:

• Read about the Whatnot x Shopify integration on our blog.

• Stay tuned for product updates coming to you soon!

Speakers: Julie Kikla (Head of Seller Partnerships, Whatnot), Makayla & Ken (@fashionten)

Julie has worked with sellers across every category and stage of growth, and in this session, she walked through the patterns that separate sellers who growth fast from the start. @fashionten joined the stage to bring the data to life with their own story.

Key Takeaways:

• Go live longer and more often: Sellers who stream 5x a week and 30+ hours in their first month hit revenue milestones faster. Cadence builds buyer habits and discovery momentum. In practice: stick to a schedule, run longer shows, show up consistently, and ramp gradually rather than all-in.

• Launch and iterate—quickly: Improving show over show separates sellers who scale from those who stall. If sales are flat or dropping, something needs to change—record and rewatch your shows, and study sellers you admire.

• Use a suite of tools to attract buyers: Breakout sellers invest in getting seen—using Promote Tools, Giveaways, and Flash Sales consistently. None is a silver bullet, but together they shift who finds you and whether they stay. In practice: run Promote or Boost every show, monitor impact and adjust, use Giveaways and Flash Sales mid-show to hold attention.

• Program for both new and repeat buyers: A sustainable business needs new buyers and loyal ones. Coupons are the most underused tool—a first-time discount turns a watcher into a buyer, and a buyer into a repeat one. For new buyers: accessible price points, free or reduced shipping, easy show formats, coupons. For repeat buyers: a weekly flagship show, Rewards Club, seasonal or event-driven programming.

Next Step:

• Which of these are you weakest on—and what’s one thing you can do to change that?

Speakers: Kristina Garrido (Head of New Categories, Whatnot), Mike & Heidi (@medcityliquidation), Chelsea & Meghan (@lunarliquidation), Chris (@dailyrefinement)

Finding good inventory is hard. Keeping it consistent as you grow is harder. Three sellers shared the channels they rely on, how they approach new supplier relationships, and what they'd tell their earlier selves about sourcing smart from the start.

Key Takeaways:

• Sourcing is networking: Go in person to the shops that have what you want and talk to the floor staff, stockers, and merchandisers — they know what's actually moving. Use LinkedIn to find whoever's actually in charge of stock or reverse logistics. Some relationships pay off slowly — Mike's first Sam's Club contract took two years from first conversation to first load. If you get a no, try again in three months. And once you're known as easy to work with, word of mouth compounds — newer suppliers often come through referrals from existing ones.

• You win deals by being the easiest person they could sell to: Position yourself as the solution to their problem — suppliers have surplus stock that needs to disappear, and you're solving that, not asking for a favor. Pay invoices the moment they come in. Have a freight broker in your back pocket and offer to arrange and pay shipping yourself — you can negotiate discounts if you take freight off their plate. "Take alls" build trust faster than cherry-picking, your big break can come from saying yes to a deal nobody else would take. That said, small orders are still good orders — countering a take-all with "I'll take 1,000 units at this price" works more often than sellers expect.

• The relationship is the asset — maintain it like one: Mike's RIP technique — Rapport, Investment, Partnership — is how calling to ask how someone's weekend with their mom went earned him first dibs on great deals. Treat suppliers like family, not transactions: holiday cards, FaceTime calls, knowing each other's kids. When a deal falls apart over price, don't take it personally — respond respectfully and leave the door open.

Next Step:

• What's the next sourcing channel
you’re been curious about but haven't tried yet — and what's the first step to testing it?

Speakers: Julie Kikla (Head of Seller Partnerships, Whatnot), Drew (@swishbreaks)

Drew from @swishbreaks sat down with Julie to get into the real mechanics of scaling: the first hire, the fulfillment chaos, the show formats that stopped working, and the mindset shifts that had to happen to keep growing.

Key Takeaways:

• Hire before you need to, and hire for ownership: Drew's first hires at Swish Breaks were day-to-day operations and fulfillment — the things he hated doing or wasn't best at. As you scale, the bigger shift is finding people who want to own a function rather than assist with it. Lean on your network first — trust is the hardest thing to onboard. Julie's tip: bartenders and grocery checkout staff make great early operational hires; they're used to interacting, moving fast, and handling whatever comes at them.

• Every system you build will eventually break — so build for what's coming next, not just what works today: Swish's fulfillment journey went pen-and-paper → spreadsheets → custom automation built by their first software engineer. Drew's framing: if you have a gut feeling a system is about to break, it probably is. The same applies to communication — they recently implemented a Monday leadership meeting where streaming, marketing, product, and ops all sit together. For years Drew assumed everyone was on the same page until he realized he had to actually say it out loud.

• Focus beats expansion — and stay close to what generates revenue: Pokemon was an early miss for Swish — six months of struggle until Drew put one of his strongest on-air personalities in charge of the division. They now do $300K a week in Pokemon. Fashion was the cautionary tale: 90 days of testing pallets clogging the freight elevator of their office building, then the realization to stay hyper-focused on collectibles rather than trying to be in everything. The other side of focus is proximity — Drew said the further he got from what was happening on stream, the more they lost the plot. Product and streaming are the two things he won't hand off.

Next Step:

• Look ahead: What’s the next thing in your business that’s going to break — and what would it take to fix it before it does?