Home Tech TikTok tests in-app shopping, challenges Facebook

TikTok tests in-app shopping, challenges Facebook

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TikTok teamed up with many brands to experiment with in-app sales in Europe, blurring the lines between social networking and online shopping.

TikTok wants to encroach on e-commerce. (Image: Bloomberg) TikTok wants to repeat the success of Douyin – the version of TikTok exclusively for the Chinese market. Only in the first year, Douyin earned 26 billion USD in e-commerce transactions. According to Bloomberg, TikTok has started a partnership with a number of brands so that they directly sell products to millions of users right on the app. It is not clear when TikTok will officially announce the feature. A representative of Hype, one of the brands TikTok partnered with, confirmed the experiment. According to images provided to Bloomberg, Hype’s booth in TikTok displayed a range of products with photos and selling prices. ByteDance – TikTok’s parent company – is actively exploring the Chinese e-commerce market in the hope of writing another glorious medal in the company’s history right before the IPO. The company aims to process more than $ 185 billion of global e-commerce transactions by 2022 based on the reach of TikTok and Douyin. Unlike Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance’s app is well known globally. Founder Zhang Yi Ming wants to use it as a stepping stone to the online shopping game. ByteDance remains a slowdown in China’s “social commerce” market, where celebrities sell products to followers. In the email, TikTok said it is experimenting and learning, and constantly discovering many new ways to add value. Currently, the major social networking companies are scrambling for online retail market share, a market expected to generate $ 5 trillion in sales this year. In May 2020, Facebook introduced a new tool to improve the shopping experience on Facebook and Instagram. Pinterest also jumped into the e-commerce market when it brought buyers to the seller’s website. For its part, TikTok has challenged the online shopping market through promotional campaigns with Walmart and Shopify. Businesses often mark products on TikTok content, with a link that leads buyers to their own website, but all of it takes place within the TikTok application. TikTok wants to lock users down more tightly by allowing brands like Hype to run booths on the platform, take orders and interact directly with buyers. TikTok hopes to sell more ads to sellers, increase traffic and eat commissions. In December 2020, Zhang told TikTok employees that e-commerce, when combined with short videos and livestreams, offers even greater opportunities outside of China. The company has quietly built up a team of engineers in Singapore to develop its e-commerce business. It is very likely that TikTok will successfully re-establish with videos suggested by artificial intelligence when it comes to shopping online. Du Lam (According to Bloomberg)