TikTok continues to be one of the more aggressive players in the shoppability movement. For those unfamiliar, this is the rise of transactional functionality in everything from Instagram stories to YouTube videos. The trend has been gaining steam for a while and inflected in the eCommerce-heavy Covid era.
Beyond Covid, the privacy environment also drives shoppability. Since privacy restrictions crack down on third-party data sharing/selling, it’s all about making better use of first-party data. Any media channel can better cultivate that data if they create end-to-end eCommerce flows under their own roof.
Add it all up and Shoppability is seeing a perfect storm. And that brings us back to TikTok which is likewise a quickly-growing phenomenon. But as it continues to feel out its product models and gain its footing among rapid growth, it’s all about experimentation. And its Shoppability efforts are no exception.
Good News / Bad News
This experimental state was validated this week in good news and bad news from TikTok’s shoppability efforts. The good news is that it launched a new dedicated shopping feed. The bad news is that there are signs that it will halt expansion in its QVC-style streaming shopping channel known as Shop.
Taking these events one at a time, the new shopping feed lets users browse and purchase things from a series of themed product sections. These are clustered under headings like clothing and electronics. The feed pulls directly from TikTok’s merchant-facing tool that lets them showcase and sell products.
From a UX perspective, the new Shop feed tab sits next to the “Following” and For You” tabs on TikTok’s home screen. Once users enter the feed, they can browse the aforementioned categories or search by keyword. There are also options to track orders, manage payments and message sellers.
Add it all up and it’s the second (expected) move in TikTok’s shoppability one-two punch. The first move was giving merchants better tools to use the platform as an eCommerce channel. Now it’s connecting all those products and merchants to TikTok users who increasingly use the app for shopping and discovery.
For now, the feature is still in experimental phases, involving a phased rollout. It’s currently available in select markets including Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and the United Kingdom. We expect that the U.S. could follow in the near future, but there’s no explicit indication nor rollout schedule from TikTok.
Win Some, Lose Some
Now on to the “bad news” noted above, TikTok is pulling back on its TikTok Shop portal. Putting aside the confusion in the branding similarity to the feature outlined above, this is TikTok’s live shopping channel. Think of it as QVC meets TikTok. It appears that the format isn’t landing with TikTok users.
This is all based on a Financial Times report that points to a lack of product traction, as well as some internal issues. It also reports that TikTok Shop was previously slated to launch this year in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the U.S.. It’s already available throughout Asia and in the U.K.
In fact, that U.K. beachhead was meant to test the waters for western-market demand. And it appears that it accomplished that… but with negative results for the program. There was an apparent lack of consumer interest, as well as relatively low sales resulting from the live video streams themselves.
But though the expansion efforts to additional western markets will be halted, it appears that TikTok will hold its ground in the U.K. to continue testing. And in Asia markets such as China, the feature is doing much better, due to cultural affinities for livestream shopping in the region. We’ll see where it goes next.
