![]() Successful social media sites don’t stay the same over the course of their lives, and neither do the careers of the creators and influencers who gain popularity on them. TikTok’s launch of its shopping platform, which began testing in the US late last year, prompts a lot of questions: Will the app be able to meaningfully compete against Amazon in the US? How will TikTok’s entrance into e-commerce feed into efforts by some lawmakers to ban the app over concerns about its Chinese parent company, ByteDance? But the one I kept asking myself was more experiential: What is TikTok now? Likewise, creators on the app who qualify can earn a commission by making content about items available in the store and linking to listings in the marketplace. TikTok takes a commission from third-party sellers. Some orders are fulfilled by TikTok, others by the sellers themselves. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.įor more newsletters, check out our newsletters page.Īccording to the New York Times, TikTok’s full rollout of the Shop to all US users involves deliberately putting a lot of videos that include a Shop button into user feeds, all while offering discounts across the marketplace to entice people to actually buy something. ![]() I’d now describe my For You Page as a scrolling infomercial that knows it needs to show me a couple Shadowheart memes to keep me looking.īy submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice. Until this week, my For You Page was comfortably settled into the queer and mental health niches, with detours into Baldur’s Gate 3 highlights and Taskmaster New Zealand clips. I returned to TikTok through the day, each time to a feed that was peppered with Shop videos, largely from creators I’d never seen before, trying to sell me teeth whitening gadgets. Six of the first 10 videos I got on my For You Page were ads, mostly of products I’d just clicked on in the Shop. But when I left the shop to return to why I’d opened TikTok in the first place - to scroll aimlessly through my For You Page - I noticed a change. ![]() TikTok Shop feels like a mix of Amazon and Wish or Temu products from big, verified brands are sold alongside cheap apparel and household goods, some of which appear to be scammy or counterfeit (though third-party sellers are, in theory, required to meet certain criteria). This is, on the surface, not that unusual for e-commerce in 2023. ![]() There are multiple offers of what appear to be knock-off pickle jar sweatshirts, a design that was originally printed and sold by an Indiana clothing boutique and then popularized when a bunch of fitness and beauty influencers started wearing it in their videos. When I opened the Shop page after its official roll-out to all US users on Tuesday, I got two listings for different brands of trendy purple toothpaste (the appeal is twofold: The brands claim the toothpaste can temporarily correct staining, and brushing teeth with dark purple goo makes for visually interesting content). Right next to the For You page on TikTok lives the TikTok Shop, the new and inevitable evolution of the company’s attempts to make money off of how good TikTok can be at making products go viral. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |