TikTok’s New Amazon Copycat Is Full of Cheap Chinese Goods
The social app’s Shop marketplace, key to its growth strategy, is so far hard to navigate.
TikTok’s Shop marketplace, the video app’s biggest bet for new revenue growth, has gone live for some users in the US. So far, it’s a showcase for cheap goods from China.
The social media app’s Shop option, prominently displayed between the For You and Following feeds where users watch videos, presents a never-ending scroll of “recommended” random products, according to an early version reviewed by Bloomberg, from a $2.99 Nike sweatshirt that appears counterfeit to a $6.99 statue of a “naughty dwarf” sitting on a toilet. Many of the listings, including a budget planner and a waist-trainer vest, say they’re shipped from China, where TikTok’s parent company ByteDance Ltd. is based. That could reignite US regulatory concerns if it puts user data in the hands of Chinese sellers.