We Are Pentagon are proud to announce we have launched one of the early pilot TikTok Shops with the Frasers Group (Flannels, Sports Direct). The Frasers Group are now able to offer products natively on their TikTok Shop displayed on their profile, mentioning these products in live streams and in-feed videos.
TikTok: the once-emerging social media app which many were quick to dismiss as a fad has become a juggernaut in the past few years; eating up market share from the likes of Meta and prompting a pivot from Mark Zuckerberg toward short-form video content as Meta face an ‘unprecedented level of competition’ from TikTok. The industry narrative on TikTok has shifted: most believe TikTok is here to stay. And looking at the stats, it’s impossible to dismiss the value of the attention TikTok has latched onto: reporting over 1 billion global monthly active users in the first quarter of 2022, with 1.8 billion predicted by the end of 2022.
Marketing teams have become increasingly disenfranchised about the effectiveness of social media channels over the years. With shifting algorithms and privacy changes that quell organic reach and paid campaigns (we’re looking at you, Meta), there’s one thing the industry tends to agree on: it’s time for new ways to reach consumers and monetise audiences effectively. As if in response, TikTok entered the scene and offered almost jaw-dropping levels of engagement to its users, catapulting ordinary video creators into the biggest stars on the planet with tens of millions of followers. It isn’t just users that are benefiting from the growth on TikTok though, you only have to look at brands like Gymshark, Zara, Glossier, and Levi’s to understand the potential for brands here: millions of followers, billions of organic impressions and now… an incredible opportunity to monetise.
Social shopping isn’t a brand new concept. In fact, China has long since been its pioneer.
Take this example to understand the sheer scale of social shopping in China. In October 2020, Viya, one of China’s most popular influencers, live streamed to over 149 million viewers on Alibaba’s Taobao Live platform during the annual two-day Singles’ Day shopping event. If Viya’s audience were a country, it would be the ninth largest in the world, larger than Russia. Viewers could purchase products without leaving the TaoBao platform; her audience spent over 4.8 billion yuan ($719 million) on products which she promoted. And Viya was just one of many – that day, over 66,000 livestreamers across different Chinese platforms attracted a total of 709 million viewers.
In China, live commerce has transformed the retail industry. It’s often been said China is a decade ahead in social-driven sales, but we are now starting to see social shopping laying its fountains in the Western world, bracing itself for rocketing growth.
TikTok Shop is an innovative new shopping feature which enables merchants, brands and creators to showcase and sell products directly on TikTok through in-feed videos, live streams, and the product showcase tab.
For brands who are both new to TikTik or those who have been leveraging it for brand building and awareness, TikTok Shop offers an incredible opportunity to monetise directly in the app. Think about how many times you saw an advertisement for something on social media, thought you might buy it, but forgot about it minutes later. In a world of distraction, that’s not unusual. For marketing and ecommerce teams, this conundrum is one that hurts their bottom line. With TikTok Shop: brands can sell products to users natively within the app, making the transition from awareness to conversion more frictionless than ever.
We expect native checkout to be the biggest change in social media in 2023, as platforms like Meta continue to explore how they can innovate Facebook Marketplace and Shop to make it an attractive and valuable place for businesses.
It’s still early days for TikTok Shop but this is good news: by getting in early, you’re able to gain a first-mover advantage. TikTok Shop is currently by application only, but if you’re interested in learning more about launching a TikTok Shop, speak to us here at We Are Pentagon. We can deploy our expertise and leverage our relationship with TikTok to get you up and running on what we believe will be ecommerce’s biggest trend this decade.
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