TikTok continues to face legal challenges. A U.S. federal appeals court upheld a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok in the U.S. by January 19 or face a ban. The deadline may receive a 90-day extension from President Biden, and TikTok plans to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Still, the social media app remains central to trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
In response to the appeals court decision, TikTok released the following statement:
The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the U.S. and around the world on January 19, 2025.
Despite the political difficulties, TikTok’s ecommerce efforts in the last year have been impressive. Since the launch of its Shop platform in 2023, TikTok has released a series of tools and partnerships, and the results appear to be gaining momentum.
What follows is a rundown of TikTok’s new and updated commerce tools for merchants, creators, and brands.
TikTok Commerce Tools, Resources
TikTok Shop, launched in the U.S. in September 2023, is an integrated ecommerce platform within the TikTok app, allowing merchants, brands, and creators to sell products via shoppable videos, livestreams, profile pages with product collections, shop tabs with searchable product listings and shoppable content, and affiliate program features.
Sellers can leverage TikTok Shop Ads and, for logistics, Fulfilled by TikTok. TikTok Shop integrates with platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce, as well as multichannel partners such as ChannelAdvisor, Feedonomics, and ChannelEngine.
In 2024, TikTok Shop launched an initiative to support small businesses called SOAR (Supporting Our Artisans and Retailers).
TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop Live enables sellers and creators to run livestreams where shoppers can purchase merchandise directly. The number of U.S. TikTok Shop Live sessions hosted each month nearly tripled in 2024, per TikTok, which stated beauty brand founder Stormi Steele (@iamstormisteele) surpassed $2 million in Black Friday 2024 sales, setting a new record for a single live session.
Subscription is a recently expanded feature for live and non-live creators that offers access to exclusive perks, unique experiences, and a members-only community for a monthly fee. Creators can customize their subscription packages in tiers, including private community channels, exclusive content, and custom perks.
Creator Affiliate Program lets creators earn commissions from merchants by sharing preferred products in short videos and livestreams. In addition, TikTok is reportedly letting some creators add product links from third-party affiliate networks (including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Rakuten, and Temu) directly to their posts through a new integration.
Creator Rewards Program lets creators monetize original videos over one minute with an optimized rewards formula focused on four areas: originality, play duration, search value, and audience engagement. Creators must be 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers, and a minimum of 100,000 views in the last 30 days.
TikTok Studio is a platform to create, edit, upload, manage, and analyze videos. Creators can post to TikTok directly from Studio and use tools such as auto caption, photo editor, and autocut. The monetization module in Studio contains an overview of all platform offerings, personalized recommendations, and growth opportunities.
TikTok Studio
Smart+ automates advertising across targeting, bidding, and creative to optimize cost and performance. Advertisers input their assets, budget, and targeting goals, and Smart+ automatically creates or selects the best creative asset and, utilizing AI-powered TikTok Symphony, chooses the right audience and optimal time. Smart+ includes campaigns for web traffic, catalog ads, app installs, and lead generation.
GMV Max is a new service enabling TikTok Shop merchants to automate advertising campaigns. GMV Max leverages all available creatives automatically (organic videos, affiliate videos, and ads) and deploys them in a single automated campaign, whether it’s promoting an entire shop or select products. Advertisers select the products to promote, define a return-on-investment target, and set the budget.
TikTok One is a new centralized hub for marketers to access creative tools. Brands can access 2 million TikTok creators, production partners, and insights, as well as the Creator Marketplace and Creative Challenge.
TikTok Symphony is a new AI suite to help marketers scale content development, creativity, and productivity on TikTok. Symphony supports scriptwriting, video production, and asset optimization. Symphony Assistant can summarize trends, create TikTok-native scripts, brainstorm creative concepts, identify creative ideas, and more.
TikTok Symphony
