Amazon opens the piggy bank for live-shopping influencers

Future. Amazon Live (the e-commerce giant’s version of QVC) is offering thousands of dollars in guaranteed money to influencers who will leave TikTok or YouTube to work exclusively for the service. But with many influencers turning the gig down because of Amazon’s lack of a social media incentive to do the livestreams, Amazon Live may consider integrating Twitch (which Amazon owns) into the feature to solve the problem.

Viral QVC

Amazon wants stars, not just for its Prime Originals but also for its Amazon Live service. Per Input, Amazon has been offering top dollar to woo influencers.

• TikTokers with roughly 100,000 followers were offered up to $9,000 per month if they livestreamed for at least 300 minutes over five sessions and generated more than $22,000 in revenue.
• The same deal was offered to a YouTube influencer, but they had a million subscribers.
• On the lower end of the spectrum, some influencers were offered $4,000 for four hour-long livestreams (or $2,100 for an hour and a half).
• These deals were on top of the 1%-10% commission rate the influencers would receive on sales.

While the upfront money is nice, many influencers have been turning down the deal for one key reason: there’s no social aspect or incentive to the live-streamed content. On TikTok and YouTube, the popularity of livestreams has the potential to grow their followings… which could lead to even more money down the road.