TikTok’s Scammy Shop Insults Users and Hurts Its Business
A viral video of cheap Apple knockoff headphones for sale typifies the video-sharing app’s irritating attempts to build an e-commerce platform.
TikTok is trying to emulate its e-commerce success in China in the US.
Photographer: Yan Cong/Bloomberg
On TikTok Shop, the e-commerce bazaar from the popular video-sharing app, a truly fantastic deal is being offered. A user called “Basketball World,” showing details from Apple’s website, touts a 97% discount on some of Apple’s luxury AirPod Max headphones. The usual price is $549, Basketball World explains, but he’s selling them for just $16 through TikTok.
It’s a scam, obviously. The headphones for sale are actually cheap Chinese-made knockoffs. But this is the reality of TikTok’s e-commerce blitz — a multibillion-dollar push into online shopping that risks driving away the users who made the app a success, bombarding them with low-rate copycat goods when what they truly want is the comedy, dancing and creativity to which they have grown accustomed.