According to Business Insider, TikTok’s evolution into a full-fledged shopping platform is now official, driven by explosive growth in 2025. The app’s Shop feature was the third fastest-growing brand in the US last year, based on a November Morning Consult report. During just the four-day stretch between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it drove over $500 million in US sales. Major brands that once hesitated, including Disney, Samsung, and Ralph Lauren, have all signed on recently, with some like Harry’s investing up to $150,000 annually for a dedicated in-house TikTok Shop manager. This shift follows a strategic push from parent company ByteDance, which modeled the effort on its wildly successful Chinese sister app, Douyin, after initial US performance issues led to a management shake-up in 2024.
The quiet training of a new shopping habit
Here’s the thing that Amazon and Walmart should be watching closely. TikTok isn’t just another marketplace; it’s fundamentally changing the consumer journey. The platform is quietly training, as the article puts it, a whole generation to blend entertainment and commerce seamlessly. You don’t go to TikTok to shop. You go to be entertained, and the shopping just… happens. That’s a powerful behavioral shift. The “ick” factor people felt in 2024, where the feed suddenly felt like a relentless sales pitch, seems to have faded. Consumers got used to it. Now, it’s just part of the experience. That stickiness is what every social platform dreams of.
The Douyin playbook finally kicks in
The whole US rollout felt clumsy for years, didn’t it? Those early Shopify links felt like an afterthought. But anyone watching ByteDance knew the hammer was going to drop eventually. Douyin in China is an absolute e-commerce monster, doing hundreds of billions in sales. The playbook was always there. The real turning point was when ByteDance replaced struggling US managers with executives from the Douyin team. They stopped treating the US like a unique puzzle and started applying the proven formula: empower an army of creators to hawk goods authentically, flood the feed, and make checkout frictionless. It was a brute-force strategy, and it worked. Poaching dozens of Amazon staff in Seattle was just the opening move.
Why 2026 looks different for TikTok Shop
So after a rocky 2024 and a challenging 2025 with tariffs, why is the outlook brighter now? Two big reasons. First, the political cloud is lifting. The reported deal to form a US-based joint venture with Oracle seriously reduces the existential threat of a ban. Big brands hated that uncertainty. Now, they can commit. Second, and more important, is that consumer habit I mentioned. The battle for attention is over, and shopping won. It’s no longer a weird sideshow. For millions, especially younger users, this is just how you discover and buy stuff now. They’re comfortable with it. That foundational shift means TikTok Shop isn’t a fad; it’s a permanent, powerful player in the retail landscape. The competition isn’t just about price anymore. It’s about attention. And right now, TikTok owns it.
