TikTok taking steps into e-commerce

TikTok appears to be deepening its foray into ecommerce with plans to operate its own warehouses in the United States, the kind of packing and shipping facilities more associated with Amazon or Walmart than the social media platform best known for short videos.

In the past two weeks, TikTok has posted several job listings on LinkedIn looking for candidates to help it develop and grow its “Fulfillment by TikTok Shop” in the U.S. to accommodate sellers using the app. According to the listings, TikTok plans to provide warehousing, delivery and item return options to sellers.

A company spokesperson declined to comment on TikTok’s e-commerce plans in the U.S.

But the U.S. job listings offer a window into a possible U.S. e-commerce expansion. In some listings, TikTok says it seeks a candidate who can manage a free return program, plan how to move inventory from one warehouse or business to another, and develop its fulfillment service in the U.S.

In another listing for a position in Seattle, the company refers to a global e-commerce team and a team member who will be responsible for building a global warehousing network, signaling its plans could be much larger.

“The e-commerce industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has become a hotly contested space amongst leading Internet companies, and its future growth cannot be underestimated,” the company wrote in the job listings. “With millions of loyal users globally, we believe TikTok is an ideal platform to deliver a brand new and better e-commerce experience to our users.”

According to Insider Intelligence, shopping on social media sites, known as social commerce, is a $ 37 billion market in the U. S., led by Meta Platforms Inc., which owns Facebook and Instagram.

ByteDance, the private Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market.

The TikTok spokesperson said the company is focused on “providing merchants with a range of product features and delivery options” in places it currently has ecommerce programs, such as Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.

Insider Intelligence forecast that about 23.7 million U.S. shoppers are expected to make at least one purchase through TikTok this year by using affiliated links or conducting a transaction on the platform itself.

Some of those sales are already having an effect. Communities such as #BookTok, a corner of TikTok devoted to literature and reading, has been credited with driving a spike in the sales of print romance books this year.

To accommodate more purchases on its app, TikTok said last summer it would partner with the Canadian e-commerce company Shopify Inc. to allow users to buy items directly on the app.

TikTok has been intensifying competition with Meta and other rivals, luring younger users — as well as popular influencers — from YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. The site’s bite-sized, entertaining clips are served up by an algorithm that often seems to know what people want before they do.

The results are difficult to ignore. In July, Meta posted its first revenue decline in history, due in part to competition from TikTok. YouTube, meanwhile, recently said it would make the creators of short-form videos eligible to join its revenue-sharing program. Previously, YouTube only allowed revenue sharing for longer videos.

Compared to digital advertising, e-commerce is a tiny source of revenue for Meta, and will likely be for TikTok for the foreseeable future. At the same time, TikTok executives are likely looking to broaden the company’s revenue sources beyond ads — a market dominated in the U.S. by Meta and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google.