The highest converting page on your site might be a booking calendar with the founder's face on it.
Live selling keeps getting framed as a broadcast problem, which is why most brands try it once and quit. By Whatnot's own account, live selling is becoming a core channel because the product page became a person. That insight scales down better than it scales up. You do not need an audience of 5,000. You need 1 customer who cannot decide between 2 sizes.
Run it as 15 minute video slots. Charge $25 and credit it against the purchase, which kills most no-shows. A short intake form before the call captures sizes, use case, and what they already own from you. On the call, the founder pulls 3 pieces, talks fit and fabric, and answers the question the size chart cannot. Then push a draft order to the customer mid-call so they pay on their phone while you are still talking. No abandoned cart, because the cart never leaves the conversation.
The catch is that it does not scale, and pretending otherwise is how it fails. The founder's calendar is the inventory, and 10 calls a week is 10 calls a week. Hand it to a rep too early and the whole proposition collapses, because the scarcity was the point. If you do delegate, build the training and the script first, and be honest in the booking copy about who the customer is meeting.
There is also an ops cost nobody budgets: someone has to prep each call, pull the pieces, and follow up. Assume 30 minutes of work around every 15 minute slot.
Clienteling was always the advantage store brands had over you. It never actually required a store. It required a calendar and someone worth booking.
