TikTok to let users shop through app with Shopify deal

While watching videos of your ever TikToker, have you ever seen a product that you wanted to own? This usually meant leaving the app, finding that particular product on google or e-commerce sites and then buying it. Not anymore.

Social networking site TikTok has introduced a new feature where users will be able to buy stuff directly from the short videos posted on their app. Until now, this was possible only through ads. The feature is the result of an association between TikTok and the Canadian e-commerce website Shopify.

Shopify on Tuesday said that businesses on TikTok will now be able to add a shopping tab to their profile. The link will create a ‘mini-storefront’ which leads the customer directly back to their onine store for checkout.

The feature comes at a time when social shopping has been picking up amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the photo-sharing app Instagram had also introduced a marketplace. Pinterest has also made some inroads in this direction. In the US though, buying products through social media is still in a nascent stage and hasn’t become very common.

TikTok’s shopping tool is currently in its beta phase and is still being tested. The feature has been rolled out to merchants in the US, the UK and Canada. In the coming months, it will be made available in other regions. Shopify already had a deal with TikTok that let merchants create ‘shoppable’ video ads that drive customers to online stores.

ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns TikTok, already runs a thriving social media marketplace on Douyin, its twin video app for the Chinese market.

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Reality star Kylie Jenner is among the first merchants to participate in the program by selling her skincare and cosmetics line through TikTok. Many other TikTokers and businesses are expected to roll out their products using this feature in the coming days.