TikTok’s effort to turn scrolling into shopping is picking up speed in the U.S., where the app says user engagement with in-stream purchases has grown quickly in recent months. Yet despite the gains, the company’s broader retail ambitions remain a work in progress.
Over the past year, TikTok has expanded its marketplace to cover more than 750 product categories. It now lists over 70 million items globally, and its U.S. operation has seen a 120% jump in sales compared to the same period last year. Popular purchases include women’s fashion, skincare, electronics, health goods, and sports gear, areas TikTok says reflect changing user interests across the platform.
Short-form videos and livestreams have become the main gateway for discovery. Shoppers are increasingly drawn to creators who showcase how products work, answer questions on the spot, and turn browsing into real-time decision-making. According to figures TikTok cites from market research partner GlobalData, over 8 in 10 TikTok users have come across a new product through the app’s shopping features, while 70% say they’ve discovered new brands they weren’t previously aware of.
That exposure appears to be paying off. More than 8 million hours of live shopping streams were hosted in the U.S. alone over the past year. TikTok claims that nearly three-quarters of users who interacted with its shopping features ended up buying something from one of these livestreams. Small businesses, in particular, are seeing a lift, over 170,000 independent sellers now run shops on the app, and year-on-year sales to U.S. small businesses are reportedly up by 70%.
To support this momentum, TikTok has rolled out a set of new tools aimed at sellers. These include tailored recommendations within its Seller Center dashboard, designed to help vendors fine-tune product listings, improve content, and better connect with interested buyers. A summer promotion titled “Deals for You Days,” running from July 7 to 19, is expected to spotlight deeper discounts and introduce a live price-match program that offers cash-back to viewers who spot lower prices elsewhere.
Still, TikTok’s broader vision for in-stream commerce, modeled after the success of its sister app Douyin in China, hasn’t yet fully materialized in Western markets. While Douyin racked up nearly half a trillion dollars in product sales last year and has become one of China’s biggest ecommerce players, TikTok’s U.S. performance remains modest by comparison. The app saw roughly $6 billion in in-app sales across 2024, a 15% increase from the previous year, but a far cry from Douyin’s scale.
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TikTok hopes to replicate Douyin’s model more closely by adding services beyond shopping, such as food delivery and transportation, directly into the app, features that have already gained traction in China. The idea is to embed spending more deeply into the user experience, making TikTok not just a content platform but a full-service digital economy.
However, several hurdles remain. TikTok’s future in the U.S. is uncertain amid ongoing efforts by U.S. lawmakers to force a change in ownership. Internally, the company also overhauled its American commerce team earlier this year after missing 2024 performance targets.
While TikTok’s latest stats paint an optimistic picture, the gap between its current sales footprint and its long-term ambitions remains wide. Whether Western users will fully embrace video-driven shopping as readily as their Chinese counterparts is still an open question, and one TikTok appears determined to answer with deeper discounts, new features, and continued pressure to reshape online retail habits.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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