Opened between 30 June and 6 July 2023, the shop was located on Oxford Street in London and aimed to present the extensive variety of brands and creators selling on the platform in a real-world context.
The shop was not open to the public but only to existing and prospective merchants and creators, and it mainly focused on categories such as tech, home and living, and books.
According to the official statement, as part of the event, TikTok merchants and creators hosted live streams from the shop. The decision to include streams was informed by previous studies that reportedly showed that 50% of the platform’s users have bought something after watching a TikTok live. Even more to this point, data made available by the video-sharing app indicates that users are more than 1.7 times more likely to watch branded live streams to purchase products when compared to non-users of the app.
Strategy-wise, this aligns with the larger ecommerce ecosystem developed around the video-sharing app. As per previous reports, TikTok cultivates a new shopping culture referred to as ‘community commerce’. In other words, because of the shared trust between creators and the community, TikTok accelerates the shopping journey, igniting the viral spread of products.
An example of this is the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt phenomenon. Not only has the hashtag garnered over 60 billion views on the platform, but it also became a section in retailers’ stores. This transition was influenced by the retailers’ understanding that shoppers are more likely to purchase products that they know from the app.
As stated in the press release, TikTok’s representatives see the newly launched pop-up shop as a central element of the platform’s commerce offering, its main purpose being to encourage brands and merchants to be discovered and offer their products to the TikTok community without the need to leave the platform.
Another reported advantage of the shop is that it enables merchants and creators to meet TikTok experts that can further educate them about the power of social selling and how they can harness the potential of the online community and prevailing trends such as #BookTok or #TechTok.
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