After TikTok Shop’s launch almost exactly one year ago, Sept. 12, 2023, the platform skyrocketed to become a staple TikTok feature. Many videos on the For You Page are centered around the shopping site. There are tabs next to the FYP tab dedicated to browsing products, and even a button specifically for “your orders” on your profile.
What began as a hesitant new feature taking many users by surprise now has over 47 million posts under the hashtag TikTok Shop and 1.1 million followers on the official TikTok Shop account.
Six months after the store’s release in March 2024, TikTok shop garnered 55 million shoppers, which is 37% of the app’s total users. The sum of wealth it produced was just as large, raking in just over $11 billion.
Bloomberg expects the trajectory to continue even higher, with an estimated $17 billion of gross revenue by the end of 2024. To put this number into perspective, Temu made roughly $34.72 billion in 2023.
With such a rapid increase in growth, the videos centered around TikTok Shop have multiplied on the platform. Videos paired with a small “sponsored” label at the bottom have become more frequent, with ads, sponsors, and commission content becoming as recurring as every five videos.
Savannah Swanson, a sophomore studying communication studies, finds the increase of advertising on TikTok overwhelming.
“Sometimes I just want to enjoy the creative content,” Swanson said. “I'm not looking to buy something, so I end up scrolling through my Tiktok page trying to find videos that aren't ads.”
The advertisements often end up being repeats of the same items, which for Swanson, adds to the frustration.
“Sometimes it can become so overwhelming because every video that's from the Tiktok Shop is the same product, and so it's just video after video talking about the same exact product,” Swanson said.
Other TikTok users share the sentiment.
Katie Bailey, a freshman studying journalism, deals with ads by “scroll(ing) right past.”
A pair of biker shorts Bailey had purchased were shown many times on her FYP before she bought them.
“I probably saw 10 videos for it,” Bailey said.
Often, however, it’s this overwhelming repetition of ads and repeat content that ends up convincing users to buy a product. Of three students interviewed on their experience shopping, all three stated they trust a product more — and are more convinced to buy it — the more content they see about it.
Jordyn Wilson, a sophomore studying child and family studies, said the repetition makes the items seem like less of a scam, even if it can be annoying.
“If I see maybe four to five (videos) from people I follow, I can kind of trust this will be a good product,” Wilson said.
When taking into account the items themselves, TikTok Shop is littered with both pros and cons. The top categories on TikTok Shop are beauty and personal care, accounting for 22.5% of the total products being sold on the app, followed by womenswear at 12.5%. Overall, the market is largely dominated by female-targeted categories.
Quality ranges, with some experiences, like Wilson’s, being inconsistent.
“The cup I (bought I) still use to this day, (it’s) definitely quality,” Wilson said. “One of the bags I bought, one of the straps broke.”
Good finds do come about, however. Swanson discussed one of her better experiences.
“Honestly, (the jumpsuit) is pretty good quality,” said Swanson. “It's more like a polyester synthetic fabric material, but it looks really good.”
When put into comparison against other popular shopping sites, such as Amazon or Temu, TikTok Shop is not performing as well, but does share a large portion of shoppers with these other platforms. According to EarnestAnalytics, SHEIN shares 28% of its customers with TikTok Shop while Amazon shares 12%.
Overall, sites such as Amazon are viewed as more reliable than TikTok Shop. Wilson views Amazon as a better choice for a multitude of reasons.
“(With) Amazon I know things are gonna come faster, I don’t pay for shipping,” Wilson said. “Everything will come in a day or two.”
TikTok shop is also notable for its high shipping costs which other platforms don’t have as much.
“(The shipping is) too high,” Wilson said. “The tax and the shipping is more than the product is worth if the product is five and the shipping is 10.”
Others, like Bailey, have put in place restrictions on what they’re willing to spend on shipping.
“I will not pay more than $8,” Bailey said.
