Eight months after its U.S. launch, TikTok Shop has clogged the For You Page of its users with product pushes and given sellers headaches with bugs and higher fees now that the initial seller incentives have ended. The social media app’s embedded storefront offers products that have found virality on the platform alongside suspiciously inexpensive cosmetics and apparel (at least, that’s what this writer’s algorithm surfaces). High end brands are rare, though the premium skincare brand NuFace is an early mover. A recent increase in the shop’s price cap is allowing luxury resale to enter the shop as well. While Meta deprioritized shopping features on Instagram and Facebook, TikTok is betting big on social shoppers.
Millennials are social media’s biggest shoppers
Social shopping can encompass affiliate links, brand shopping links, and in-app purchasing. Facebook Marketplace enables user-to-user sales as well, but the actual transactions are usually handled off the platform.
Millennials are the most consistent users of social shopping features across the apps, with outsized activity on Facebook and YouTube, compared to other generations. Gen Z adults and millennials are similar in their shopping activity on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest, where they again are far ahead of Gen Xers and baby boomers in their choice to shop on socials. Teenage Gen Zers are notably low on their usage of Facebook’s shopping features, which is commensurate with their use of the platform overall.
Morning Consult Audience data reveals that people who shop on social media are always looking out for the latest trends (15 percentage points more likely than the general population). Social media influencers help their followers stay ahead of the trend curve through these shopping features, so the shopping extensions reduce friction from inspiration to conversion.
TikTok’s shoppers overindex among millennials
More than one-third (37%) of millennials said they’ve made purchases on TikTok Shop, despite using the platform less frequently than Gen Z adults. When asked if they use TikTok at all, 64% of millennials said they did, compared to 76% of Gen Z adults. So, the millennials who do use TikTok are making more purchases overall.
Baby boomers are clearly wholly uninterested in TikTok shop, but it’s likely that as the shop experience improves, so will usage among Gen Xers, 41% of whom said they do use Tiktok, and Gen Z teens, 68% of whom are on TikTok but may not have their own payment methods yet.
TikTok Shop has work to do, but has the potential to become a significant contender.