Seen on TikTok, merch takes off
NEW YORK — Near the Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids at a New York candy store are fruit-shaped soft jelly candies that earned a spot on the shelves because they went viral on TikTok.
A flood of videos last year showed people biting into the fruit gummies’ plastic casing, squirting artificially colored jelly from their mouths. The chain now has signs with the app’s logo in stores, and goods from TikTok make up 5% to 10% of weekly sales.
“That’s an insane number,” said Chris Lindstedt, the assistant vice president of merchandising at It’Sugar, which has about 100 locations.
TikTok, an app best known for dancing videos with 1 billion users worldwide, has also become a shopping phenomenon. Shopping on social media sites, known as social commerce, is a $37 billion market in the U.S., according to eMarketer.
At Barnes & Noble, tables display signs with #BookTok, a book recommendation hashtag on TikTok that has pushed paperbacks up the bestseller list. Amazon has a section of its site it calls “Internet Famous,” with lists of products that anyone who has spent time on TikTok would recognize.
The hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has gotten more than 5 billion views on TikTok, and the app has made a grab-bag of products a surprise hit: leggings, purses, cleaners, even feta cheese.
Companies are often caught off guard when their products take off.
“It was a little bit of a head-scratcher at first,” said Jenny Campbell, the chief marketing officer of Kate Spade, remembering when searches for “heart” spiked on Kate Spade’s website earlier this year.
The culprit turned out to be a 60-second clip on TikTok posted by 22-year-old Nathalie Covarrubias. She recorded herself in a parked car gushing about a pink heart-shaped purse she’d just bought.
Others copied her video, posting TikToks of themselves buying the bag or trying it on with different outfits.
The $300 heart-shaped purse sold out.
“I couldn’t believe it because I wasn’t trying to advertise the bag,” said Covarrubias, a makeup artist from Salinas, Calif., who wasn’t paid to post the video. “I really was so excited and happy about the purse and how unique it was.”
Last month, TikTok began testing a way for brands to set up shop within the app and send users to checkout on their sites. But TikTok has hinted that more is coming.
“Over the past year, we’ve witnessed a new kind of shopping experience come to life that’s been driven by the TikTok community,” said TikTok General Manager Sandie Hawkins, who works with brands to get them to buy ads on the app and help them boost sales. “We’re excited to continue listening to our community and building solutions that help them discover, engage and purchase the products they love.”