The global personal luxury market hit a wall in 2025. After surviving the Covid pandemic to reach a record $432 billion (€362 billion) in 2023, things began to cool. It dropped 3% from its historic high to $419 billion (€358 billion) in 2025, according to Bain’s authoritative luxury report produced with Altagamma.

In addition, the channels favored by luxury consumers have shifted markedly. Online shopping, which grew from 12% of the market in 2019 to 20% in 2023, reached a saturation point. It’s held steady at 20% market share over the last two years and has fallen in step with the overall market. On the other hand, monobrand stores continued to grow, reaching  37% market share in 2025 from 31% in 2019. Bain notes that over the years, customers are showing a clear preference for the high-touch personal service and curated brand experience they find in a store.

Most troubling of all, there has been a steep drop in the number of luxury customers—from a post-Covid peak of 400 million to between 335 and 345 million in 2025. While numerous reasons are given for this drop, Bain stresses one in particular: Gen Z consumers are setting the tone for the next era of luxury. 

The Gen Z generation is more critically discerning and less brand loyal. They are showing a clear preference for brands that offer relevance and meaning over status and they are more fluid in how they shop—preloved and discount outlets are drawing them away from traditional channels. 

Taken together, these trends challenge luxury brands to find new rules of engagement. Livestream e-commerce—blending immediacy, authenticity, personal interaction and compelling storytelling—offers a promising way to bridge the gap. It combines the convenience advantage of online shopping with the emotional resonance of in-store experiences, making it a promising way for luxury brands to win over the next generation and a new avenue to further engage current customers.  

Livestream Takes The World By Storm

Livestream retail is an e-commerce method in which products are presented in real time by a host on social media, allowing viewers to interact, ask questions and make purchases without leaving the platform. Effectively, it’s the next generation of TV shopping, pioneered by QVC and HSN back in the 1980s.

But the shift from capital-intensive cable broadcasting to social media channels opens opportunities for creators and entrepreneurs to get in on the ground floor, potentially disrupting traditional retail much like podcasters and independent journalists have disrupted traditional news outlets.

Livestream e-commerce retail got its start in China when Alibaba Group’s Taobao Live launched in 2016. It has since been adopted by Alibaba’s Tmall and expanded by Douyin (TikTok in China), Kuaishou, Bilibili, JD Live and WeChat Channels. Livestream retail sales in China are expected to reach $1.1 trillion in 2026, from $683 billion in 2023. 

In livestreaming, the U.S. is still playing catchup, yet it is growing fast. U.S. sales are projected to reach $68 billion in 2026, more than doubling from 2023, according to Statista. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Amazon all host livestreaming platforms, and QVC/HSN has turned to the format for future growth. In addition, Shopify and Popshop Live offers livestreaming for its merchants.

According to a 2025 Savings.com survey among 1,000 American adults, nearly 60% have tuned into live shopping shows with some 33% having made a purchase that way, a remarkable high level of engagement.   

By all accounts, livestream shopping in the luxury market remains in its infancy. Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s host live shopping events, as do Kiehl’s, Sephora, L’Oréal, and Estée Lauder in beauty. Another early adopter is the 1916 Company, formed from the merger of Watchbox, Govberg Jewelers, Radcliffe Jewelers and Hyde Park Jewelers in 2023. It features weekly livestream events hosted by watch expert Tim Mosso. 

But beyond the majors, entrepreneurs like Christos Garkinos of “Covet by Christos” is paving a new path for luxury brands to reach a broader, highly-engaged target audience. 

Finding A New Way To Reach Luxury Consumers

The 61-year-old Garkinos has a wide-ranging resume. The first-generation son of Greek immigrants, he got his start as a brand manager for Clorox after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in business accounting. 

He moved on to the Disney Store and Virgin Retail before landing a spot on Bravo’s Dukes of Melrose series. All the while, he was co-founder of a luxury resale store in Los Angeles and leveraged his fame and sales expertise to launch a fashion line on HSN.

In 2018, he literally took his show on the road, founding “Covet by Christos” to host luxury vintage trunk shows across the country. 

That all came to a dead stop once the pandemic hit in 2020, so he turned to livestream shopping with a daily show “Live in the Closet by Christos” featuring vintage luxury from the closet of celebrities, like Kathy Hilton and Jennifer Aniston, on Instagram and has never looked back.

Bringing Luxury Brands Onboard

While vintage luxury remains the business’ bread-and-butter, it has also now expanded partnerships with brands such as Cesta Collective, a newbie luxury handbag brand backed by Meghan Markle, and Lunya sleep and loungewear, under the “Covet by Christos” banner. 

Favorite Daughter, the high-end fashion brand founded by sisters Erin and Sara Foster, is coming on next. 

“This will be the first time they are doing live shopping and they’ve chosen Christos because they know that they will be getting in front of the right audience,” he said, adding, “TikTok Shops and others like it have customers looking for discounts. Our customers have no problem spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars with us.” 

Garkinos says he has a growing list of other luxury brands that want to be discovered on the Covet platform. “We give them the ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval’ in the luxury space,” he shared. 

Emerging brands are also attracted by better margins offered on the platform than is typical with other wholesale partners. And another big plus is that brand partners get the customer data, unlike in other wholesale arrangements where the retailer keeps all that information close to the vest. 

Why It Works

To date, Covet by Christos has generated over $200 million in sales by building a community of loyal customers drawn not only to the products offered but also by his engaging personality and those of his team of hand-selected presenters and the trust they’ve built with customers over time.

“People tune in to see what will happen and something funny always happens,” he said. “It’s shopping, but it’s also entertaining and that doesn’t happen in any other verticals.”

Shows are scheduled so the exclusivity of luxury is maintained, with the added FOMO (fear of missing out) incentive. And the livestream platform also supports engaging storytelling, another essential feature of luxury shopping. 

Livestreaming allows for presentations from anywhere in the world, so Covet by Christos is global with hosts frequently presenting from far-off locations with local viewers tuning in—products purchased are drop shipped by the brand and shipped all over the world. And in addition to livestreaming, Covet by Christos hosts in-person events for its community members in cities across the globe, most recently in Dubai which 100 top customers attended.

“My vision is to be the Netflix of luxury shopping,” he said, which is a lofty ambition but one that he feels he has a fair shot of achieving, after successfully cracking the code for luxury retail via livestream. 

Not to take anything away from QVC or HSN, these channels span many different categories, from home cleaning supplies to high-end fine jewelry, and tend to be focused on discounted prices. Covet by Christos stays in its luxury lane. 

Luxury Pillars Maintained And Expanded

Luxury retail has long relied on exclusivity, authenticity, storytelling and personal connection. Covet by Christos has kept those pillars but moved them to a new medium that merges the immediacy and personal touch of in-store shopping with the convenience of shopping from home—or anywhere else one might be. Covet by Christos has dispelled the notion that livestream shopping is not suited to luxury brands or threatens their fundamental values.  

As luxury brands confront stalled e-commerce sales and struggle to attract next generation customers, livestream e-commerce offers a way to bridge those gaps. Covet by Christos shows that the format not only preserves the pillars of luxury but re-energizes them for a new era.