After swooping in and taking users away from established social media giants like Instagram, Snap and YouTube, China's TikTok is going after another tech giant on U.S. soil: Amazon.
But while TikTok's AI-driven video platform has proven irresistible to American consumers, the company's efforts to become a shopping destination is already encountering challenges that may prove difficult to overcome.
According to several ecommerce industry insiders with whom Fortune spoke, a glut of low-quality products for sale on TikTok Shop, as well as TikTok's policies around customer data, is turning off some prospective partners.
TikTok appears to have high hopes for Shop, giving it prominent placement on the app's search homescreen in its launch earlier this week. When TikTok's 150 million U.S. users open the app on their phones, they can quickly access the new shopping service by tapping "Shop" next to the famous "For You" and "Following" tabs. Within the Shop, users can scroll down to find today's deals, featured brands and products "recommended for you" as well places to manage their orders, shipping addresses and browsing history.
When users click products like jackets and pants, they can see them featured in normal TikTok videos, in theory offering a more accurate representation than a photo in a catalog featuring a professional model (though Shop affiliates receive sales commissions).
The selection seems heavily skewed towards the low-end. When Fortune first browsed through TikTok Shop, the first seven products, all clothing, on the feed were manufactured in China and cost less than $20. For marketers and influencers who don’t want to attach their brand images to low-grade offerings and knockoffs, this could be a disincentive.
“It’s all garbage,” says shopping influencer Brooke JuLyn who has nearly 90,000 TikTok followers and makes up to $50,000 per month from Amazon, brand deals and creator tools. JuLyn has posted a few videos on TikTok Shop of products she likes, but says that their quality and the affiliate commissions are lower than the Amazon equivalents. "For bigger guys like me, this is just not something that I’m going to pursue. I’m not going to sell garbage that gets one use and is thrown into a landfill; it’s totally a quality issue.”
Haley Galler, head of talent at influencer management company Shine, says TikTok is courting American brands for Shop in order to alleviate such worries. “They're definitely working on onboarding some really great partners that they have shared. So I think we'll continue to see [Shop] get better and better,” she says.
A representative for TikTok disputed the characterization of the products available for sale as "low quality." They noted that the platform had only officially launched this week and that the company was has already onboarded brands such as L'Oreal, Benefit, Revolve and ScrubDaddy. This spokesperson also told Fortune that TikTok Shop has over 200,000 sellers and 100,000 creators participating in the TikTok Shop Affiliate program.
But some brands may balk at TikTok's data policies. Ann McFerran, CEO and founder of cosmetics company Glamnetic, told Fortune that TikTok's onboarding process was overly complex and that the company does not give brands access to customer data. "They're going to start generating actual revenue and taking credit card information from all these users, [but] not sharing it with the actual brands," McFerran said, discussing why her fake nail and lash company ultimately decided not to join TikTok Shop at launch.
"They literally own all the data," she said of TikToK, adding that it "won't even share email addresses" with companies.
A representative from the company told Fortune that Shop integrates with Shopify, Salesforce and other commerce enablers, but did not address whether it shares customer emails with merchants. (Amazon does not share customer emails with merchants either, so TikTok's policy is not unique in that respect.)
Still, for brands looking to build relationships with customers and garner repeat sales, the lack of data could be a problem. And the fact that this sensitive personal data, including credit card information and mailing addresses, is being collected by the China-owned company could create more complications. TikTok is already under scrutiny by the U.S. government, over worries that the China-owned app could be used to spy on Americans (TikTok says it does not share protected US user data with China).
“It will be interesting to see if governmental wariness around data protection and privacy translates to consumer wariness as shopping is an inherently more data-heavy transaction,” says Megan Lightcap, a principal at Slow Ventures who invests in the creator economy, over text.
Shopping habits for the smartphone generation
TikTok's foray into shopping comes as Amazon, the largest online retailer in the U.S., pushes into social. The convergence of these once distinct online markets exemplifies the natural overlap between online relationships and ecommerce for the smartphone generation.
“As Gen Z comes into their buying power, and TikTok being such a destination for them...this is a big opportunity for us to start to see what social commerce can really become in the United States," says Jen Jones, chief marketing officer at ecommerce enabler Commercetools.
For many Gen Z users who have grown up on social media, sharing data is a fact of life. As this demographic is the backbone of TikTok, the option to buy affordable goods within their preferred social platform may be enough to make TikTok into a shopping hub. “It’s a logical step for them given the momentum they’ve amassed in product discovery (unintentional) and search (intentional),” says Lightcap of Slow Ventures. “To the extent it facilitates greater choice and convenience, it benefits consumers."
In addition to competing against Amazon, TikTok Shop also has a frenemy-like relationship with Chinese commerce sites like Temu and Shein that have become popular with US consumers and influencers for their on-trend garments at bargain prices. Neither Temu nor Shein were part of TikTok Shop at the US launch this week.
Compensation for affiliate creators on TikTok Shop remains a big question mark. Julyn says that TikTok has paid her less than $100 from her Shop videos, spare change compared with her Amazon, Walmart and brand earnings that reach into five-figures per month.
But TikTok has proven that it can harness technology like AI to make videos go viral. If it can pull off the same feat with shopping, creators could have a change of mind.
"It’s a newish behavior so the actual consumer uptake will be interesting to track," says Lightcap. "Creator benefit will follow consumer adoption.”
