TikTok is training its e-commerce partners on what’s worked in China as it doubles down on live selling
TikTok has become an important live selling tool in parts of Asia.
TikTok is gearing up for the holiday season on its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.
A couple of weeks ago, around the first anniversary of the product’s US launch, TikTok gathered roughly 300 Shop partners across 200 agencies in a hotel near its Culver City office for its first invite-only partner summit.
The group attended panels, participated in feedback sessions with TikTok staffers, and shared ideas on influencer affiliate marketing and paid and earned media tactics. But live selling was the clear focus of the event, five partners who attended told B-17. Across sessions, TikTok staffers and agency partners talked about how to find studio space for livestreams, as well as what was needed to build up a live selling operation.
“Probably 60% to 70% of the discussion was around livestream,” said Jake Bjorseth, founder of the marketing firm Trndsttrs, who attended the summit.
A second partner who attended the event described its content as “live, live, live.” This person, as well as several others, were granted anonymity to protect their business relationships with TikTok. Their identities are known to B-17.
Why was TikTok so focused on livestreams at its first US Shop partner summit?
Well, for one, TikTok has had a string of blockbuster live-selling events in the US and UK this year, during which companies like beauty brand P.Louise and Stormi Steele’s Canvas Beauty sold more than $1 million in goods in a single stream, according to TikTok.
The invite list for the summit may have also played a role in focusing the discussion around live selling. Several of the attendees were partners who had expertise selling on TikTok’s China-based sister app Douyin, which generates hundreds of billions in sales each year, primarily through influencer livestreams. These partners offered advice on what’s worked well for social shopping in Asia, and discussed potential cross-border partnership opportunities, three Shop partners in attendance told B-17.
A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
What works on Douyin won’t necessarily take off on TikTok Shop
Strategies that are successful on Douyin often end up on TikTok next, and the two companies, which operate independently under parent company ByteDance, have been sharing ideas a lot lately.
Last month, Douyin and ByteDance invited TikTok Shop partners to visit the Chinese cities Shanghai and Hangzhou to meet regional social-commerce partners and see the studios they use to film shopping content. Digital ad firm adQuadrant was among a handful of companies selected for the visit, according to its CEO Warren Jolly, who spoke at TikTok’s US partner summit.
Of course, live-selling tactics on Douyin won’t necessarily translate well to TikTok in the US. Social shopping has been sluggish to take off in North America compared to Asia, as bringing consumer shopping behaviors across borders can be difficult.
“If you’ve lived in China, you’re Chinese origin, you’ve built this business over the last seven years focused on live shopping and social commerce,” Jolly said. But that expertise selling in China may not help US sellers facing a much different e-commerce reality, he added. “Yes, live shopping is important. We understand that it’s going to become pervasive in the Western world and the US market. But it’s not going to be at the same modality of what’s happening in China.”
Other TikTok Shop partners who spoke with B-17 agreed that the emphasis on livestreams and comparisons to the Asian market at the event weren’t particularly useful when a lot of their TikTok Shop sales currently come from influencer videos rather than livestreams.
“I can tell you that we walked out of that [summit] and said, ‘Oh, that’s a cool opportunity in livestream,’ but the actual financials don’t make sense for most agencies,” Bjorseth said.
TikTok’s ability to replicate Douyin’s live-shopping success in the US may be tough, even as the company has been gaining on its e-commerce competitors in sales and repeat purchases in recent months. E-commerce in the US is dominated by non-social-media players like Amazon and Walmart, both of which work with influencers on livestreams or affiliate programs but predominantly drive sales through other means.
Still, there are some signs that livestream shopping is on the rise outside of Asia. Whatnot, a live-shopping platform in North America and Europe, said in an October report that it’s crossed $2 billion in gross merchandise volume from livestream sales conducted in 2024.
Ultimately, TikTok’s e-commerce momentum may be abruptly cut short, however. A US divest-or-ban law passed in April could force a sale or ban of TikTok’s app in the US. TikTok is currently challenging the law in court. Several attendees said the prospect of a ban wasn’t brought up at the company’s TikTok Shop partner summit.
