According to a blog post published Tuesday, TikTok has officially launched its e-commerce company in the United States after conducting tests there for the last several months. This comes as the social media app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, seeks to capitalize on the app’s growing popularity.
TikTok is introducing online shopping by integrating several e-commerce features into its primary application in the hopes of emulating the level of success that has been achieved by the Asian e-commerce platforms Shein and PDD Holdings’ (PDD.O) Temu.
Because TikTok now provides tools to content producers, brands, and merchants to create shoppable content, its more than 150 million viewers in the United States will soon be able to watch videos and live streams on their feeds that include links to websites where they may buy products.
One of the new features is a shop tab, which allows companies to showcase their wares and utilizes TikTok’s logistics and payment processing capabilities.
The social media company said that it has also connected its shopping service with various third-party systems, some of which include Shopify (SHOP.TO), Salesforce (CRM.N), and Zendesk, amongst others.
The online marketplace for TikTok, which has been said to have been in development in the United States since November, is now accessible in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore.