Consuming the selling experience in-the-moment: The use of TikTok Live during Black Friday in the Netherlands

Abstract

Although TikTok Shop has not been fully launched in Europe, users are actively repurposing TikTok LIVE to facilitate commercial activity. This paper examines the emergence of live commerce on TikTok LIVE during Black Friday week in the Netherlands, highlighting how users mobilise the platform’s features to stage commerce as an interactive and participatory spectacle. We conceptualise TikTok LIVE as a hybrid space where entertainment, interaction, and commerce converge, reflecting broader trends in the platformisation of consumer culture. Drawing on ethnographic content analysis of 131 TikTok LIVE sessions across 80 accounts (22h37min of content), we employed a ‘follow the medium/traces/users’ approach to document how commerce unfolds within and beyond the app. First, we identify three selling formats: live auctions mediated via chat, external sales directing users to websites, and community-driven giveaways that reward prior buyers. Each format illustrates evolving norms of interaction between hosts and audiences. Second, we analyse the roles performed during LIVEs, mapping a spectrum from charismatic influencers to transaction-focused sellers, and noting distributed labour across hosts, moderators, and viewers. Third, we show how creators gamify live interactions - through unboxing rituals, celebratory shoutouts, and packing routines - rendering back-end commerce into content. These practices, we argue, exemplify commerce as liveness, reliant on self-surveillance and emotional engagement. We conclude by reflecting on the consumer law implications of these practices and assess TikTok’s role as a private governor shaping how commerce is organised and experienced on its platform.