TikTok’s comment section is filled with viewers asking creators where they bought the shirt/bag/lipstick they are wearing in the video. Parent company ByteDance wants to cash in on that interest. Its ambitions for logistics will never catch up to Amazon.
Global retail ecommerce topped $5tn last year, according to Insider Intelligence, more than double the total five years earlier. It expects the market to exceed $8tn by 2026. TikTok wants to take a bigger share. This will diversify the private company’s revenue from digital advertising — a sector that slowed last year. In addition to TikTok Shop, which lets brands sell directly on the platform, it has begun to sell products directly.
This is a direct challenge to Amazon, the leading US online retailer. The holy grail of social shopping is authenticity. Seeing a favourite creator use a product is more compelling than digital ads. TikTok’s ecommerce ambitions highlight the failures of Amazon, where functionality overrides entertainment. This explains why Amazon launched a rather lacklustre TikTok-style feed of its own, with videos of products available.