Introducing New Mutually Beneficial Features

Recently, as part of the ongoing partnership with Shopify, the social media platform TikTok announced that it would be introducing a brand new in-app shopping experience for its users. According to the announcement, a select number of merchants from the US, UK, as well as Canada, would have access to a brand new shopping tab, as well as product links, to sell products from their Shopify storefronts.

This new feature seems to be similar to Instagram’s in-app shopping feature. The shopping tab will be a dedicated section on a user’s profile, that has a scrollable list of products others can click through, and then be taken directly to the merchant’s storefront on Shopify.

The product linking feature also offers a similar integration to merchants, as it will be allowing them to link directly to a product on Shopify, inside of the TikTok video. The feature is currently with limited availability and requires users to have both a Shopify storefront, as well as a TikTok for business account. Although in the feature’s current form, content creators on the platform won’t receive a general monetization option, it’s still considered as an expansion of the advertising abilities the platform previously offered its users.

As previously mentioned, Instagram already introduced a similar feature, with Facebook following shortly after. Both platforms allowed users to make purchases inside their apps, instead of having uses leave the app to look for the product they’ve come across.

TikTok has been testing this brand new feature for a while now, with a collaboration by the streetwear brand Hype, from the UK, along with several others across Europe. The testing phase saw the platform introduce a shopping tab inside the app, where users could see the products that brands offered in their profiles.

In the past, TikTok has allowed its content creators to sell their search through a Teespring integration and has also announced that the company is working on a live video infomercial product as well. Additionally, according to some comments, the social media platform has also been working with the celebrity brand Kylie Cosmetics for the new shopping features.

The social media company also announced earlier this year that it would be introducing live streamed shopping features, similar to the traditional TV shopping programs and channels, such as QCV, but aimed at younger generations. With that feature, uses could make purchases with just a few taps after watching a short clip similar to an infomercial.

With these new changes, TikTok is once again showing other companies in the market that the platform is gearing up to become an even more serious industry competitor – one that has exploded into popularity in the last year. While other platforms have been trying to implement features similar to the ones TikTok has, that platform has established itself with a strong presence in the marketplace already.

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