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| Photo from unsplash |
TikTok continues its push to
make its app a shopping destination by bringing more brands to the Shop initiative, which allows businesses to sell their goods directly on the app with a full payment experience. TikTok started testing the Shop in the United States last November, and we now know a few brands that are part of this initial testing phase.
According to a report from Ad Age, companies including clothing brands such as Pacsun, Revolve and Willow Boutique as well as beauty brand KimChi Chic are now part of this shopping experience. Users who want to shop from the products of these brands can click on the shopping bag icon in the brand profile to view their catalogs and complete the payment process without leaving the TikTok app.
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| Photo from unsplash |
The company confirmed to that TikTok Shop in the United States is "still in the testing phase," as it has been since November, but did not provide any information about the schedule for a wider launch.
Although users have been able to purchase products through ads on TikTok for some time now, they have previously been taken to an in-app browser to make the purchase. With TikTok Shop, the payment process takes place directly within the app, making the experience look original and smooth. This is also the way Instagram Shop works.
Outside the United States, the TikTok store has been available in select markets including Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore for almost a year. Previous reports indicated that TikTok had dropped plans to bring Shop to the US and additional parts of Europe after the project was said to have struggled to gain traction in the UK.However, TikTok seems to think that there is a market for Shop in the United States given these ongoing tests .
In addition to TikTok Shop, the company invests in other shopping features as well. Last March, the app partnered with Instacart to allow food creators to make shoppable menus linked to recipe videos. Later in June, I started testing a custom shopping feed, which served as a hub for products being sold at the TikTok Shop, also in specific markets. In addition, I tried direct shopping in different markets such as the UK and several countries in Southeast Asia.
As TikTok continues to work on shopping features, its rival apps are scaling back some of its e-commerce efforts. Instagram removed the Store tab in January and announced this month that it was abandoning its direct shopping efforts. Facebook also shut down the direct shopping feature in August 2022. Meanwhile, Amazon has experimented with direct shopping in different markets. In addition, YouTube introduced new live shopping features such as allowing two creators to stream together last May.
However, there is little evidence that these experiments are increasing the volume of online trade in western markets as it happened in Asia. Reports have indicated that social commerce in the United States accounts for only 5% of e-commerce sales.
This may be due to cultural differences in how apps are used between markets. But it is also difficult to keep track of all the shopping transfers that come from being influenced by buying a product in a social space. Some of these e-commerce transactions may not take place immediately using direct links shared by a brand or content creator, in fact. But video content or a brand advertisement may increase sales later after the consumer sees more digital ads or searches for the product himself by searching on Google or Amazon, or by visiting the retailer's website.
The phrase "TikTok made me buy it," however, has become a byword for the video app's ability to boost sales. The term now has 7.4 billion views on TikTok, in fact, and the hashtag has 42.6 billion. In-app shopping features can not only increase these sales, but can make them traceable for brands and companies as well.
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