TikTok could soon add in-app shopping

TikTok is reportedly working with several European brands in what appears to be its latest initiative to bring online shopping to the popular social media platform.

The move isn’t the first, nor is it surprising. Facebook-owned Instagram rolled out ecommerce features a couple of years ago and has since been slowly expanding across various international markets.

Now a Bloomberg report claims that TikTok is planning a similar move and is trialing the rollout with several European brands including street-wear label Hype, which has also confirmed its participation.

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Industry experts believe TikTok’s attempts to bring online shopping and social media closer together, will open another avenue for the platform to compete with Facebook.

Trial and error

This isn’t the first time TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has tried to bring online shopping to a social media app.

Its TikTok equivalent in China, Douyin, added an ecommerce functionality in 2019 and claims to have clocked transactions worth $26 billion in just its first year.

Online shopping isn’t completely alien to TikTok as well. The Verge reports that the platform has tried enabling ecommerce on the app a couple of times in the past, partnering with the likes of Teespring, and Shopify, without much success.

However, it appears TikTok’s latest endeavor will give creators the ability to sell merchandise to their fans directly via the platform.

There is currently no word on how long the trial is going to last, and whether the platform intends to introduce the feature in other markets as well.