Pokémon, touts and frantic bids

The allure and potential pitfalls of Whatnot's live auction empire

- Rob Davies

Christmas is fast approaching, shopping days are ebbing away, and in one corner of the internet, the rush to grab highly prized Pokémon trading cards is boiling over into a competitive frenzy.

"Got any cheap Mew?" asks one buyer in the frantic tone of an addict, albeit one craving a rectangle depicting a creature from the Japanese media franchise. Yet more buyers are gathering for a “break” session - where they can bid for items such as cards featuring Pokémon or footballers, drawn at random from a real or virtual box.

This is the fast-growing empire of Whatnot, a “live auction” website and app that might best be described as a cross between eBay and a TV shopping channel.

Its stated mission is to enable anyone to “turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce”.

But there is a murkier side: some users have reported becoming hooked on the rapid-fire, gamified mechanics of impulse buying, not to mention its gambling-style features, posing serious risks to their mental health.

Whatnot’s specialism in collectibles also raises questions about a broader commercial ecosystem, in which the supply of must-have Christmas toys has been cornered by scalpers, or touts, creating scarcity and driving up prices for hobbyists and cash-strapped parents hoping to make their kids happy at Christmas.

Whatnot’s business model is not unique - eBay also offers live auctions - but its stellar growth marks it out as the face of modern-day live shopping. In October, just six years after it was founded in the US by Grant LaFontaine and Logan Head, the company was valued at $11.5bn (£8.5bn) in a funding round that attracted investment from blue-chip backers such as DST Global and CapitalG, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

At the time, the company claimed its sellers had racked up “gross monetary value” of $6bn so far in 2025, with Whatnot making its cut by charging them fees.