Whatnot terms, defined properly
The vocabulary of live selling: what each term means, and what it means for how you run your shows.
Break (box break)
A live event where sealed product is opened on stream and buyers purchase shares of whatever is inside.
Spot
A purchased position in a break that entitles the buyer to a defined share of what gets opened.
Chase
The rare, high-value card or item that buyers are hoping to pull from a break or sealed product.
Hit
A pull from sealed product that is meaningfully valuable: an autograph, relic, low-numbered, or chase card.
Buy It Now (BIN)
A fixed-price purchase during a live show: the buyer taps buy and pays the listed price instead of bidding.
Whale
A buyer who spends far more than the room average and can change the economics of a show on their own.
Combined shipping
Multiple wins by the same buyer in one show shipping together as a single package with one label, also known as bundle shipping.
Shipping profile
The setting on a listing that tells Whatnot an item's packed weight, and sometimes its dimensions, so shipping can be priced, labelled and bundled.
Weight class
The shipping weight tier a seller assigns to an item, also called a weight category, which determines what the buyer pays for shipping.
Giveaway
A free item awarded to a viewer during a live show, used to reward the room and grow attendance.
Relist
Putting an unsold or returned item back up for sale in a later show or listing.
Team break
A break format where each spot is one team, and the buyer of that spot gets every card of that team pulled from the product.
Random break
A break format where every spot costs the same and teams or slots are assigned by a randomizer only after all the spots have sold.
Personal break
A break where one buyer purchases the entire product and keeps everything pulled from it, opened live on their behalf by the seller.
Rip (rip and ship)
Opening sealed packs live on camera, and by extension the rip and ship format where a buyer keeps everything pulled from the packs they bought.
Hobby box
A box of trading cards sold through hobby distribution rather than mass retail, typically built with better stated odds on hits.
Sealed product
Product still in its original factory packaging, unopened and untouched, sold exactly as it came from the manufacturer.
Slab (graded card)
A collectible sealed into a tamper-evident case by a third-party grading company, with an authenticated condition grade printed on the label.
Raw card
A card that has not been graded or encapsulated, sold in whatever protection the seller put it in rather than in a slab.
Lot
One unit of sale in a show: the single item or grouped items that go up together under one auction or one Buy It Now.
Ship window (handling time)
The time a seller has after a sale to hand the order over to the carrier, also called handling time.
Payout
The transfer of your sales earnings out of the platform and into your bank account, after fees and anything else owed have been taken off.
Pending balance
Money from sales that is credited to your account but not yet available to withdraw, because those orders have not finished settling.
Hold (payment hold)
A deliberate pause on releasing your funds, applied by the platform while an order, an account, or a dispute is reviewed.