In August 2021, TikTok and Shopify expanded their partnership and announced the launch of TikTok Shop, a built-in marketplace that allows its users to experience shopping and selling products with exclusive features from TikTok. TikTok claims that they would be able to support sellers and buyers through their convenient and unique content system, ‘For You’ page for content recommendation, short videos, campaign, community building, live chat and live streaming.
Before TikTok Shop was released, even until now, the influence began when TikTok-inspired shopping became an emerging trend in Indonesia’s online shopping behaviors. Creators created content that also suggests and talks about certain products on their respective TikTok, the content reached audiences with the same interests which prompted them to be intrigued and convinced enough of the product, and viewers marched to e-commerce sites and local stores to track down said products. TikTok currently has more than one billion monthly active users with most of them are young enough to open the app at least 8 times a day, making TikTok Shop as the desirable business channel for sellers.
The principal value for TikTok Shop is interactive promotions. Sellers have the opportunity to conduct a sharing session about products and directly influence prospective customers, meanwhile buyers are allowed to witness how the product looks like in motion, product introduction, reviews, offers, ask questions in chat, and purchase it right away from TikTok without having to switch apps and websites—all tailored to their personal interests.
TikTok Shop has successfully set records for many brands and salesmen to experience an increase of sales. A series of live-shopping was able to gain 42 million views with product sales from various categories. However, since TikTok was first introduced not as a shopping app, there are concerns about TikTokers overusing the feature, with brands using creators to plug their products to the point of users thinking that the platform may no longer be exciting anymore. For now, TikTok's Shopping feature is still relatively new and, therefore, a novelty. Whether that lasts in the long run is yet to be determined.