While user interests have been relatively low thus far, TikTok continues to push ahead with its live-stream commerce initiatives, hoping that it can replicate the success that its Chinese sister app, Douyin, was able to achieve.
Something Different
After scaling back its live commerce push in Europe, due to various teething problems, TikTok’s now taking a new approach in the US, where it will reportedly partner with established live shopping network TalkShopLive to boost awareness of its shopping broadcasts. TalkShopLive hosts an expanding variety of live shopping streams that cover a wide range of topics and product categories. The platform is steadily becoming popular online as a discovery and shopping destination. While TalkShopLive doesn’t share specific user numbers, it did note that its last year’s sales, made via broadcasts, were increasing at about an 85% month-over-month rate.
That growth had largely been led by an array of popular celebrities signing on to sell goods through the app, including the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Paul McCartney, Dolly Parton, Alicia Keys, and more.
TikTok will likely look to form a new partnership with TalkShopLive that will have its own live shopping broadcasts cross-posted to the platform, which would help it reach more active and engaged shoppers, further promoting its live-stream commerce offerings. At the same time, TikTok’s also partnering with various influencer agencies to get more popular creators on board with its live shopping tools.
So on one hand we have TikTok looking to maximize reach to people who are out to actually shop, while on the other, it’s also working with influencers to help them understand how they can use live shopping broadcasts to make more money on the app. This is a very different approach to how TikTok looked to build its live shopping team in the UK, which relied on the aggressive promotion of the option, eventually turning away both shoppers and potential partners alike. It’s a different story in Asian markets, however, with its live-stream commerce tools seeing growth in Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam.
It’s really just the Western market that needs to catch up, with the likes of Facebook and YouTube even needing to dial back their live commerce efforts because of ‘lukewarm’ audience response. TikTok needs to make it happen, and the challenge is that it can’t effectively monetize short-form clips, making revenue sharing a bit more difficult. It’s not that TikTok isn’t making money, it’s just that it won’t be able to scale revenue share as well as, say, YouTube, if it can’t find a way to reel in more funds besides through content.
The Wrap
Douyin is seen as TikTok’s savior in China, with the Chinese live-stream sector bringing in over $300 billion in 2021 – almost half of the entire US retail eCommerce market. It makes sense then why TikTok is so keen to ‘make fetch happen’ in Western nations too, which is its own challenge seeing as how Western users just aren’t interested in buying from streamers online. The Middle East shows promise at least, while it’s also possible to become a bigger thing at some stage. Right now, what TikTok needs to get over is the initial adoption hump, but through initiatives like these, TikTok could, if it manages to land a critical hit, propel itself to even greater heights.
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