“Live Retail” Debuts in NY’s Times Square

“Live shopping” is projected to more than triple in the U.S. by the end of the decade as retailers, creators and streaming platforms embrace the format – which is already huge in China – news service Axios reported this past summer. And now, such retail has come to New York’s Times Square.

Now broadcasting on TikTok from the Candler Building at 220 W. 42^nd St. are retailers operating out of nine studios in tm:rw’s 22,000-square-foot flagship. Starting nightly at 6:30 p.m. (ET), hosts and creators move from studio to studio in an unbroken live broadcast, demonstrating each innovation in a physical space rather than in front of a ring light.

The 11 brands that served as the complex’s launch lineup of pop-ups were: TDM, Whoop, HoverAir, Cozyla, Robosen, Amazon, Anker, Memomind, AEKE, Target Darts and SIQ.

“At tm:rw, we pride ourselves on being first,” Nathalie Bernce, Co-Founder and CEO of tm:rw said in a news release. “tm:rw Studios is exactly that. Commerce and content are now the same thing, and the proof is that a store can be a broadcast. We built nine studios and a permanent live space because retail’s future is live, and we intend to be the ones building it.”

tm:rw describes itself as an immersive innovation retail destination, housing 120-plus brands, including 50-plus that are exclusive to tm:rw, across flagship locations in Times Square, Selfridges London, KaDeWe Berlin and Rinascente Rome.