TikTok app for social commerce drops in US

NEW YORK — After months of testing, TikTok is fully launching its e-commerce product in the U.S. in an effort to translate the app’s cultural relevance among young consumers to sales.

The company said Tuesday its shopping wing, called TikTok Shop, will include several features such as a “Shop Tab,” a marketplace its been testing on the app since August; affiliate videos in user’s feed that allows creators to earn commissions from products; as well as a logistics arm called Fulfilled by TikTok that stores and ships products for merchants.

TikTok spokesperson Laura Perez said more than 200,000 sellers have registered for TikTok Shop. And more than 100,000 content creators are participating in the affiliate program, which allows users who have 5,000 followers to create videos that go directly to TikTok’s algorithmically engineered “For You” feed.

The Shop Tab, where products from its marketplace are listed, is now available for 40% of users on the app’s home screen. The feature will be rolled out gradually until it’s available for the app’s 150 million U.S. users by early October, Perez said.

Shopping on social sites, known as social commerce, is estimated to be a $69 billion market in the U.S., led by Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, according to Insider Intelligence. ByteDance, the Beijing company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market. This year, Insider Intelligence had projected 33 million U.S. consumers to make a purchase on TikTok, which has a lock on product discovery with popular hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt.