Latest / Collectors MD Features / #26: The Live Auction App Where People Can Bid 'Till They're Broke | WSJ

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#26: The Live Auction App Where People Can Bid 'Till They're Broke | WSJ · Collectors MD Features

• 0:05
  When Sean Harding was a kid, back in the early
• 0:07
  1990s, he was obsessed with baseball. I just
• 0:12
  grew up loving baseball. You know, playing catch,
• 0:16
  watching baseball, playing baseball. Here's the
• 0:19
  pitch on the way, a swing and a belt! Left field!
• 0:22
  Blue Jays! My favorite team when I was a kid
• 0:26
  was the Toronto Blue Jays. They won the World
• 0:29
  Series, and it was just so cool, and I just loved
• 0:32
  it. Touch them all, Joe! You'll never hit a bigger
• 0:35
  home run in your life! And like a lot of kids
• 0:39
  who love baseball, Sean was also really into
• 0:41
  baseball cards. When I opened up a card, I would
• 0:44
  immediately turn it over and just read the stats,
• 0:47
  right? Like, when was this person a rookie? What's
• 0:50
  his batting average? How many home runs has he
• 0:52
  hit? What teams has he played for? So I just
• 0:56
  loved being inundated with that knowledge and
• 0:59
  just, you know, the pictures and getting to know
• 1:03
  more of the players. It's just all of it. But
• 1:07
  Sean grew up. He got married, had three kids,
• 1:10
  and became an accountant. And collecting baseball
• 1:12
  cards became just another childhood memory. Until
• 1:16
  2024, when he walked into a collector shop to
• 1:20
  buy a gift for a friend. And when I went in there,
• 1:23
  Jessica, I was like, I was, I felt like I was
• 1:26
  a kid again. And I looked at the cards and the
• 1:29
  design of the cards was so much better than it
• 1:33
  was 30 years ago. I mean, like the picture, the
• 1:36
  feel, everything. I was like, oh my gosh, these
• 1:38
  are so, these are so nice. I love it. So that's
• 1:42
  how I got back into it. Sean ended up going to
• 1:45
  that card shop a lot, building his collection
• 1:47
  up again. And then I found out from a buddy of
• 1:50
  mine that, it's like, why are you going to a
• 1:53
  local card shop? You can buy cards online. I'm
• 1:57
  like, what? That sounds so awesome. This counter's
• 2:00
  a $300 to $500 card, fellas, all day. Sean's
• 2:05
  friend introduced him to live auctions, live
• 2:07
  streams where buyers can bid around the clock
• 2:10
  on collectible items like baseball cards. The
• 2:13
  most popular live auction app in the U .S. is
• 2:15
  called Whatnot. It was so easy. It was so convenient.
• 2:20
  It was very fast -paced, but it was so easy to
• 2:23
  use. You download it on your phone, you put in
• 2:25
  your payment information, your shipping address,
• 2:28
  and you just start swiping. Right. Right? Come
• 2:32
  on! Roman and Kags, dual auto to 25. Holy moly.
• 2:43
  Did you find it fun at all or like thrilling?
• 2:46
  Oh, my gosh. Yeah, of course. Right. Like when
• 2:49
  you have access to that much without leaving
• 2:53
  your home. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It was it was very
• 2:57
  fun. But Sean says that what started out as a
• 3:02
  fun hobby turned into an addiction. Soon, thousands
• 3:06
  of cards filled box after box in his guest room.
• 3:10
  After four months on whatnot. Sean decided to
• 3:13
  tally up how much he had spent. I went on Whatnot
• 3:17
  and I downloaded my activity to see what that
• 3:21
  total was. And you added it all up? Yep, I added
• 3:26
  it all up. And what was the total that you saw?
• 3:29
  Almost $1 .4 million. Welcome to The Journal,
• 3:36
  our show about money, business, and power. I'm
• 3:39
  Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, August 14th. the
• 3:50
  live shopping app where some people bid till
• 3:53
  they're broke. This episode of The Journal is
• 4:03
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• 5:21
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• 5:39
  TikTok and the Home Shopping Network come together
• 5:43
  and have a baby. That's our colleague Hannah
• 5:47
  Kruger, who covers retail. Whatnot took the most
• 5:51
  addicting qualities of the 21st century and fused
• 5:54
  it into an app. Where there's shopping, there's...
• 5:58
  endless scroll. There's an entertainment aspect
• 6:01
  and music and things flashing on screen. It's
• 6:04
  a really captivating, intoxicating experience
• 6:06
  in the palm of your hand. What is shopping on
• 6:11
  Whatnot like? It's a pretty overwhelming experience
• 6:15
  for a newcomer. Can you show me how it works?
• 6:18
  Yeah, you want to see my Whatnot? Hannah pulled
• 6:21
  out her phone to show me the app. Once the app
• 6:24
  loads, it presents Hannah with live streams for
• 6:27
  her to choose from. Each one features an auction
• 6:29
  where a seller tries to entice buyers looking
• 6:32
  for a deal on things like coins and collectibles,
• 6:35
  but also everything from beef jerky to designer
• 6:39
  clothes to horse tack. And you click on one and
• 6:42
  the party starts almost immediately. You often
• 6:47
  come in and there's some time of music playing.
• 6:50
  It's, you know, EDM, metal music. There's a countdown
• 6:53
  clock happening already at the bottom. The bid
• 6:56
  price for that item is going up rapidly. And
• 6:59
  meanwhile, there's a chat also on the screen
• 7:02
  where people are talking and fawning over the
• 7:05
  item that's being auctioned off. Let's go chat.
• 7:08
  And the auctioneer is speaking like an auctioneer.
• 7:12
  It's fast -paced. It goes from gentle to sometimes
• 7:15
  pretty aggressive, like chiding of the buyers
• 7:18
  to, come on, chat, wake up, chat. Are you going
• 7:21
  to leave me hanging here, chat? Oh, I see, we're
• 7:27
  asleep, chat. Oh, you're not going to help me
• 7:29
  out today, chat. And you can walk away with something
• 7:35
  at a discount. It's that hunt. for the deal that
• 7:39
  really animates and invigorates the experience.
• 7:43
  And if you don't like a particular host or you
• 7:45
  don't like a particular item, all you do is just
• 7:47
  swipe up and there's another auction waiting
• 7:49
  for you beneath it. That's the endless scroll
• 7:52
  coming to play of auction. Probably one of the
• 7:55
  bigger cards I've ran in my streaming career.
• 7:57
  One of my favorites. After auction. We're now
• 7:59
  low size 42, brand new with tags. Guys, you're
• 8:02
  way too low. After auction. Don't miss out. You
• 8:05
  got three, two, one. Uh -oh, uh -oh, uh -oh,
• 8:07
  uh -oh, uh -oh. Sudden death steal. Sudden death
• 8:09
  steal. And so how do you bid on an item? There's
• 8:16
  like a little yellow bar at the bottom of the
• 8:18
  screen, and it says bid, and then it shows you
• 8:21
  a price. So to bid, you just swipe your finger
• 8:25
  across that to bid at the price that they're
• 8:26
  recommending. You could bid on a price that you've
• 8:29
  entered yourself, but that would require yourself
• 8:32
  typing it in, which by the time you've finished
• 8:35
  typing it in, you've probably already been outbid.
• 8:38
  So you have seconds to make your bid, basically.
• 8:40
  Seconds, yeah. Not a lot of time to really think
• 8:42
  about it, yeah. Exactly. And then so what happens
• 8:44
  if I win an auction? You know, when I'm online
• 8:47
  shopping, right, you buy a thing, you put it
• 8:48
  in your cart, takes you to a confirmation screen,
• 8:51
  checks your address, your billing information
• 8:54
  and all of that. Is that also what happens here?
• 8:57
  Oh, Jess, no. So you literally will just be on
• 9:01
  a feed. You want... those Birkenstocks, and you
• 9:05
  swipe at the bottom until you win the bid, and
• 9:07
  the next item comes up for sale. And it says,
• 9:12
  Hannah Kruger, or whatever my username is, won
• 9:15
  the auction, and the next item, and the next
• 9:17
  item. And you only really have a sense of what
• 9:22
  you bought if you check your email or when you
• 9:25
  open it up at your doorstep in a box. Oh, wow.
• 9:28
  Okay. Whatnot's auctions, with their high -pressure
• 9:31
  countdowns and high -energy hosts, encourage
• 9:34
  buyers to spend. And the app's design gets rid
• 9:38
  of almost every hurdle they'd normally encounter
• 9:40
  when shopping online. I don't know, escapism
• 10:00
  and maybe there's a potentiality that you're
• 10:04
  going to get a nice handbag for a fraction of
• 10:07
  the price that you could get it when you're using
• 10:08
  a traditional website. For others, that means
• 10:12
  you might not have as much knowledge about what
• 10:15
  you're spending, how you're spending it, and
• 10:17
  how quickly you're spending it. Live auctions
• 10:20
  aren't unique to Whatnot. Other companies like
• 10:23
  TikTok, eBay, and Fanatics offer them too. But
• 10:26
  according to Whatnot, which has been around since
• 10:28
  2019, it holds nearly 60 % of the live commerce
• 10:32
  market in North America and Europe. The company
• 10:35
  takes an average cut of 6 % of each sale. In
• 10:39
  its latest funding round, Whatnot was valued
• 10:41
  at $20 billion. One of the app's many users was
• 10:46
  Sean Harding, who you heard from at the start
• 10:48
  of the episode. He started bidding on Whatnot
• 10:51
  in late 2024 after rediscovering his love of
• 10:54
  baseball cards. By then, Sean had figured out
• 10:58
  that he could actually make money buying and
• 11:00
  selling those cards. You can just buy singles,
• 11:03
  like just single cards and potentially send them
• 11:06
  off to get a good grade and make money. So at
• 11:10
  first I go on Whatnot and I'm buying singles.
• 11:14
  I'm buying singles left and right. I'm not spending
• 11:17
  too much. But then I start seeing these, what
• 11:22
  they call breaks. Breaks. These are what generate
• 11:26
  some of the most feverish, hyped -up auctions
• 11:29
  on Whatnot. All right, guys, thank you so much
• 11:31
  for coming in for the first break of the evening.
• 11:34
  In a break, a seller puts up an unopened box
• 11:36
  of cards for auction. The box can cost thousands
• 11:40
  of dollars, with the promise that maybe there
• 11:43
  are some valuable cards inside. Instead of bidding
• 11:46
  on the whole box, a buyer can pay for a designated
• 11:49
  share of the box, like cards for a particular
• 11:52
  sports team. In essence, they're buying a chance
• 11:55
  to get a valuable card. All right, guys, let's
• 11:58
  do it. Good luck, everybody. Here we go. No one,
• 12:01
  neither the buyers nor the sellers, knows what
• 12:04
  cards are inside. How about Clemens? How about
• 12:07
  Roger Clemens there? That's sick. Wow. You could
• 12:11
  get something very big or you could get nothing
• 12:14
  at all. And were most of your bids on breaks?
• 12:17
  Oh, yes. Yep. And some of these channels... had
• 12:22
  breaks where you could win five -digit cards.
• 12:25
  Like, yeah, tens of thousands of dollar cards.
• 12:28
  But of course, right, you have to bid more. Whatnot
• 12:35
  says that sellers who offer breaks only make
• 12:37
  up 4 % of sellers on the platform. The company
• 12:40
  declined to say how much revenue breaks generate.
• 12:43
  But there is a lot of money flying around breaks.
• 12:46
  Sean remembers one break where he got cards of
• 12:48
  the Cleveland Cavaliers. By this point, he'd
• 12:51
  expanded to collecting other sports cards, not
• 12:54
  just baseball. And everyone in the chat was like,
• 12:57
  oh yeah, great hit. You know, that's a great
• 13:00
  team that you want. And I was like, okay, cool.
• 13:02
  When the cards were revealed, Sean won a great
• 13:06
  one. A LeBron James, what they call X -Fractor,
• 13:10
  rookie card, at that time, was worth $20 ,000.
• 13:15
  How did you feel? Oh my gosh, amazing, right?
• 13:20
  You won. Yeah. Felt like a winner. I just, yeah,
• 13:23
  I felt a feeling I haven't felt before. Not every
• 13:27
  break came with a win. Sometimes, Sean would
• 13:30
  blow thousands of dollars on a dud. But he found
• 13:33
  himself bidding again and again. Was there a
• 13:37
  moment where you were like, I think I should
• 13:39
  just stop? Oh, yeah. Eventually, all the time.
• 13:43
  But I kept talking myself out of it. I kept chasing
• 13:47
  that feeling of... winning. Sean told me that
• 13:52
  ultimately his bidding on Whatnot started to
• 13:55
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  -800 -526 -7736 to learn more about Trampaya
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  and visit trampayaradio .com. After he discovered
• 15:00
  breaks, Sean Harding's spending on Whatnot skyrocketed.
• 15:04
  By the end of January 2025, he was spending as
• 15:08
  much as $12 ,000 a day. How often were you bidding
• 15:13
  on breaks? It got to the point, Jess, where I
• 15:16
  was on the phone bidding. Every night. Every
• 15:21
  night. On these high -end breaks. Every night.
• 15:24
  As soon as the kids were in bed, I would either
• 15:26
  go in the office or I would hide in my guest
• 15:29
  room and just be on Whatnot. I would be folding
• 15:33
  laundry, my kids' laundry, with my phone on my
• 15:35
  lap, watching auctions. So, yeah. Every minute,
• 15:41
  I was awake. Did it feel good still to do that?
• 15:45
  To know that you were looking forward to those?
• 15:49
  moments or oh yeah i was looking forward to it
• 15:52
  yeah i knew deep down that there was probably
• 15:55
  something going on like there was it was a problem
• 15:58
  but you know the bad conscience over here is
• 16:01
  like nope right right like you know you can win
• 16:04
  again you've already done it before right win
• 16:07
  some more cards yeah yeah my state of mind was
• 16:10
  i have to keep bidding because i've Spent so
• 16:15
  much money. I didn't know how much because I
• 16:16
  didn't want to look. But I spent so much that
• 16:19
  I need to figure out a way to win it back. Right.
• 16:24
  Almost like that gambler's mentality. Right.
• 16:27
  You know that I'm chasing I'm starting to chase
• 16:31
  losses. Other Whatnot users have also said that
• 16:35
  the app enabled their gambling addictions. Earlier
• 16:38
  this year, a consumer protection attorney filed
• 16:41
  arbitration demands against the company on behalf
• 16:43
  of more than 70 clients. The complaint alleges
• 16:47
  that Whatnot's card breaks constitute illegal
• 16:49
  lotteries under California law and that the company
• 16:52
  is operating a criminal enterprise in violation
• 16:55
  of racketeering laws. The complaint also claims
• 16:58
  that Whatnot operates an online casino, quote,
• 17:01
  without providing the safeguards required of
• 17:03
  regulated gambling operations. Here's our colleague
• 17:06
  Hannah again. That's the Thorne and Whatnot side
• 17:09
  at the moment is that there are lawsuits that
• 17:11
  are claiming that it's a gambling enterprise.
• 17:14
  What has the company said about this comparison
• 17:15
  to online gambling? Like the line between live
• 17:18
  auctions and gambling as Whatnot sees it? Whatnot
• 17:23
  categorically rejects that gambling happens on
• 17:26
  its site. And the distinction that it often points
• 17:29
  to is that people on Whatnot will always walk
• 17:33
  away with a physical item. Whereas in a casino,
• 17:38
  you can... pull the lever on a slot, you can
• 17:41
  show up to a blackjack table and walk away with
• 17:43
  literally empty hands. So that is the distinction.
• 17:48
  Obviously, that card that the person's walking
• 17:51
  away with could be worth $1 and they could have
• 17:54
  paid $1 ,000 for it. But at the end of the day,
• 17:57
  they're not empty handed. And that is the line
• 18:00
  that Whatnot strikes repeatedly when it comes
• 18:02
  up to this. And how does that argument hold up
• 18:06
  in the eyes of, you know, gambling regulators?
• 18:09
  It's really something that's only started percolating
• 18:11
  in the last couple months. And it's not something
• 18:15
  that's really they've had to contend with in
• 18:17
  court quite yet. So it'll be interesting to see
• 18:19
  how it plays out and if judges believe that distinction
• 18:23
  is really meaningful. Whatnot says that addiction
• 18:27
  and overspending haven't registered as significant
• 18:30
  problems in external and internal data. To keep
• 18:36
  up with his spending, Sean tried selling some
• 18:38
  of the cards he'd collected. But it wasn't enough
• 18:41
  to cover his losses. Soon, Sean was tapping his
• 18:45
  credit cards, taking out personal loans, and
• 18:48
  borrowing from his friends. He used that to place
• 18:50
  more bids on Whatnot, hoping to win money back.
• 18:54
  Then, he came across a break he couldn't pass
• 18:57
  up from his seller he bought from often. And
• 19:00
  they said, hey, how about I make you this great
• 19:01
  deal on these teams? And I was like, oh man,
• 19:05
  I don't have the money. And then I remembered,
• 19:07
  I'm like, oh. I have my company credit card.
• 19:11
  Using his company's credit card, Sean spent $10
• 19:15
  ,000 to buy into the break. I'll just do it one
• 19:18
  time. I'll just put it in one. I'll just put
• 19:21
  it in one time. It'll be fine. And, you know,
• 19:23
  I'll win some cards and then I'll take it out
• 19:26
  and I don't have to worry about it again. Yeah.
• 19:29
  And I put it in the app and I had some big cards.
• 19:34
  I had some really good cards. I said to myself,
• 19:39
  Oh my gosh, like I can, I got away with it the
• 19:42
  first time. I can just do it again, right? Sean's
• 19:46
  employer didn't suspect a thing. In fact, he
• 19:50
  was the accountant in charge of keeping an eye
• 19:52
  on the company card. But his wife was getting
• 19:55
  suspicious. She had asked Sean for a credit report
• 19:58
  after he had used their joint credit card to
• 20:01
  make bids on Whatnot. Before he gave her the
• 20:04
  report, Sean removed two pages that showed two
• 20:07
  personal loans. My wife was an auditor. We actually
• 20:11
  met as we were both accountants to start. And
• 20:15
  she came down and she said, Sean, why are there
• 20:17
  two pages missing? And of course, I tried to
• 20:20
  deny it. And I eventually told her, yeah, there
• 20:25
  were two personal loans on there. I didn't want
• 20:27
  you to worry about it. Whatever excuse I can
• 20:29
  make up. And then she said, you just need to
• 20:32
  tell me everything that's going on. Sean came
• 20:35
  clean and confessed everything. The next day,
• 20:38
  he went to a Gambler's Anonymous meeting. Soon
• 20:41
  after, Sean resigned from his job, and his marriage
• 20:44
  fell apart. Sean also downloaded his purchase
• 20:48
  history from Whatnot and tallied up the money
• 20:51
  he had spent in just four months. $1 ,362 ,687
• 20:57
  .31. What went through your mind in that moment?
• 21:03
  How did you feel? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. pretty
• 21:09
  sure I broke down. And we, I basically, I don't,
• 21:16
  I had no idea. I was so disconnected from what
• 21:20
  was actually going on. It was like my mind and
• 21:22
  my body were in two different places. So I had
• 21:26
  no idea what to do. I feel like up until recently,
• 21:31
  and when I say recently, like the last couple
• 21:33
  of decades, there was infrastructure to shopping
• 21:37
  that had restraint. elements to it, right? Like
• 21:40
  the store closed at six. You had to drive to
• 21:42
  that store. You waited in line sometimes. You
• 21:45
  had to remember to bring your credit card or
• 21:47
  cash. But Whatnot has none of that. There's no
• 21:51
  restraint built into the app. It is frictionless,
• 21:56
  as we've described. And Whatnot has succeeded
• 21:58
  in making this as convenient as possible. And
• 22:02
  I feel like that's a trend among... Just the
• 22:06
  economy and any type of experience that you can
• 22:11
  have in America right now is that we're trying
• 22:12
  to make it as convenient as possible. But I think
• 22:15
  Whatnot begs the question of at what cost? And
• 22:18
  do we need things like spending our money on
• 22:20
  slime or $1 ,000 cards to be so convenient that
• 22:25
  we don't even remember how much we spent? Yeah.
• 22:28
  But at the end of the day, though, right, it's
• 22:30
  the buyers who are making these purchases. What
• 22:33
  does it say about the app that it can... encourage
• 22:36
  people to spend so much. It's interesting, yeah.
• 22:40
  I mean, I think it says that, it shows that if
• 22:44
  you add the intoxicating elements of TikTok and
• 22:49
  endless scroll and the social chat room of Instagram
• 22:54
  and you put all these things into the shopping
• 22:57
  experience, you can make people actually want
• 22:59
  to part with their money, even for junk that
• 23:01
  they've never seen or might not use. or didn't
• 23:06
  even know they wanted 30 seconds ago. As for
• 23:11
  Sean, he says he still thinks Whatnot is a good
• 23:14
  shopping app for people who want to find deals.
• 23:17
  But I feel like there needs to be some guardrails
• 23:20
  or things in place that help users, right, know
• 23:25
  what they're getting into. Because it can be
• 23:29
  dangerous. What do you think would have been
• 23:31
  helpful to you? Like, what kind of guardrails
• 23:34
  would have been useful? I think that... having
• 23:39
  a confirmation, right? Maybe even just an extra
• 23:44
  second to think, all right, is this the right,
• 23:46
  am I making the right decision? I don't know
• 23:49
  if that would have necessarily changed anything
• 23:51
  for me. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't, you
• 23:53
  know, something or some sort of limit, right?
• 23:57
  Like I know a lot of online sports books and
• 24:00
  betting apps, right, have a limit on how much
• 24:02
  you can buy in a day, you know, something to
• 24:06
  help protect consumers. Recently, Whatnot has
• 24:09
  been trying out some of these measures. Last
• 24:11
  year, the company introduced optional spending
• 24:14
  limits and watch time caps. And last month, it
• 24:17
  rolled out an additional tool that pauses spending
• 24:19
  immediately. Whatnot says it also plans to test
• 24:23
  an option to add a passcode before purchases
• 24:25
  to add more friction. It will also test out flagging
• 24:28
  information to users who show a sudden spike
• 24:30
  in spending. For over a year now, Sean has been
• 24:35
  in recovery. He hasn't participated in a break
• 24:38
  since April, 134 days, and he's working to pay
• 24:42
  back his debts, including to his former employer.
• 24:45
  I'll probably be paying him back for a long time.
• 24:51
  So, yep. But at least with the cards, I sold
• 24:55
  my house, emptied out my retirement, my savings.
• 24:59
  So it was a start. Luckily, I had at least something
• 25:04
  to pay him back. He also leads meetings at Collectors
• 25:08
  MD, a peer support group for collectors struggling
• 25:11
  with compulsive spending. Right now, I just want
• 25:15
  to be there for my kids, really. But yeah, I
• 25:22
  want to, I guess, just be better going forward
• 25:25
  and help wherever I can, right? Like part of
• 25:30
  recovery is giving back. So that's where I'm
• 25:35
  at. That's all for today, Friday, August 14th.
• 25:50
  The Journal is a co -production of Spotify and
• 25:52
  The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting
• 25:54
  in this episode by Sarah Nassauer. The show is
• 25:57
  made by Catherine Brewer, Evelyn Fajardo -Alvarez,
• 26:00
  Pia Gidkari, Max Green, Sophie Codner, Ryan Knutson,
• 26:04
  Matt Kwong, Colin McNulty, Laura Morris, Enrique
• 26:07
  Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alan Rodriguez
• 26:10
  Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singhi, Jivika
• 26:13
  Verma, Catherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamise, and
• 26:16
  me, Jessica Mendoza. Our engineers are Griffin
• 26:20
  Tanner, Nathan Singapak, and Peter Leonard. Our
• 26:22
  theme music is by So Wiley. Additional music
• 26:26
  this week from Catherine Anderson, Peter Leonard,
• 26:28
  Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Nathan Singapak, Griffin
• 26:32
  Tanner, So Wiley, Epidemic Sound, and Blue Dot
• 26:35
  Sessions. Fact -checking this week by Jennifer
• 26:37
  Gorin and Nicole Pasulka. Thanks for listening.
• 26:41
  See you Monday.