TikTok is starting to help creators manufacture their own products

Shopping is a major focus at TikTok as the company looks to compete in social commerce.

TikTok is in the early stages of connecting manufacturers with creators to help them make their own products to sell on its e-commerce platform, Shop, two people with knowledge of the effort told B-17.

The move would enable influencers to sell custom products to their TikTok followers, the people said. These people asked for anonymity to protect business relationships with TikTok. Their identities are known to B-17.

TikTok declined to comment.

Building personalized products is a top focus among creators and celebrities who attract a large enough audience to market and sell their own goods. While making sponsored content for an outside brand can be lucrative, it often means a short-term payday. Building a product line they own can give creators bigger payouts.

In recent years, megastars like MrBeast, Logan Paul, and Emma Chamberlain have started selling chocolate bars, energy drinks, and coffee to their fans, using social-media posts to drive awareness and sales. But creators with smaller audiences can also find success selling custom goods, particularly if they’ve established a content niche that naturally aligns with a product line. A food creator might launch a cookbook, for example, while a fitness creator could sell athletic gear to fans.

Startups like Pietra help creators of all audience sizes break into product development by connecting them with manufacturers and opening avenues to test small-batch orders. TikTok appears to be getting into that game as it begins playing matchmaker between manufacturing partners and creators.

While many of the sellers on TikTok Shop are third-party companies, TikTok also operates its own first-party marketplace where it sources products from manufacturers and handles marketing and logistics in-house, allowing it to create operational efficiencies and grab a bigger share of revenue. It connects those manufacturers and sellers with TikTok Shop agencies to help distribute free samples to influencers in order to drive up promotions of products. TikTok creators can earn a commission on Shop sales they drive from their videos. Taking the extra step to connect those manufacturers it has direct relationships with to creators to build custom products could help further drive sales on the platform.

Boosting sales on TikTok Shop has been a major focus at the company since the feature launched in the US in September 2023. TikTok recently hosted its first US summit for Shop partners, where it encouraged agencies to work with brands to do more livestream selling. The company also invited partners with expertise selling products on TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, to offer advice on social commerce and discuss cross-border partnership opportunities, three partners who attended the summit previously told B-17.

Douyin, which, like TikTok, is owned by Chinese tech firm ByteDance, drives hundreds of billions in product sales annually. Since July, sales on TikTok have topped around $1 billion a month in the US, The Information reported.

But TikTok’s e-commerce ambitions may fall flat if it’s forced to divest from its US operations or face a ban in January, as mandated by an April law. TikTok is currently challenging the law in court, and some of its employees and business partners previously told B-17 that the company was operating its business generally as usual as it waited for a ruling.