Short-form video hosting service TikTok has officially launched its ecommerce product TikTok Shop in the US, aiming to provide customers with new features. Following this announcement, customers will be enabled to use the new features added to the TikTok Shop, such as the dedicated shop tap located on the home screen, affiliate programs for creators, as well as shoppable ads.

Creators will be enabled to tag products in their content in order to make it easier for clients and users to make purchases from in-feed videos and live videos. Furthermore, brands and businesses will be enabled to design their own product portfolio and make it accessible from their profile pages. TikTok Shop will have its dedicated tab, which was rolled out in June to other markets, developed to enable users to search for different products, browse items from different categories, as well as discover products through recommendations, and manage their orders.

Moreover, TikTok also set up an affiliate funnel for sellers and merchants that will enable them to work directly with creators, on a commission basis to sell products. More information on the launch TikTok has been testing the new ecommerce initiative in the US since November of 2022 while adding more vendors to the test as well. For example, Bytedance has been testing different formats of shopping in multiple markets, such as the US and many Southeast Asian countries.

Apart from offering businesses the capability to host their services on the platform, Bytedance also gives logistics tools under `Fulfilled by TikTok`, alongside a secure checkout method. Bytedance also sells products from its own subsidiary on TikTok in the UK, with a new `Trendy Beat` section which was launched in June. By launching the TikTok Shop, the social network might need to gather more data from its users, including their shopping patterns, addresses, and financial details.

All of the data that was collected from US customers is currently stored in the country and managed by USDS, a separate unit that manages only the US information and data. TikTok’s recent partnerships In August 2023, fashion live-selling technology company CommentSold announced its partnership with TikTok Shop in order to enable a live-selling integration in the US. Following this collaboration, merchants and traders who leveraged CommerntSold were given the possibility to hold live shopping events on TikTok while using the CommentSold platform. The entire live-show products, commerce, and communication management were set to be integrated with TikTok Shop.

Earlier in the same month, multichannel enabler CedCommerce announced the launch of TikTok Shop Connector, a solution that was developed to connect the ecommerce platform with TikTok Shop. The product aimed to allow UK-based and US-based traders to showcase and sell their tools directly on the social media platform. .