In March 2025, ChinaTalk’s Ed Sander appeared on the Let’s Talk Marketplace for the third time. This time he shared insights from his research into the performance of TikTok Shop.
From a LinkedIn post by co-host Ingrid Lommer:
TikTok Shop’s business is actually doing rather badly in the US and in the UK – the results are way behind the company’s expectation. Or “meh”, to put it plainly. What does this mean for the TikTok Shop launch in Europe and for brands that want to jump on the bandwagon?
Valerie and I discussed this in the new episode of our podcast “Let’s talk Marketplace” with Ed Sander, a man who likes to look behind the scenes. After all, Ed is someone who knows the Chinese market inside out – not least because he has direct access to Chinese sources. And that’s why he knows the goals that ByteDance, the company behind TikTok, has set itself. According to these, TikTok wanted to achieve a GMV of 17.5 billion dollars in the US last year. In fact, it was only half of that, namely $9 billion. “So they are not achieving their own goals,” says Ed, “but of course they don’t say that. They prefer to proudly point to the triple-digit growth in the US, but that’s not very impressive when they’ve only been operating for a little over a year.” And in the UK, too, TikTok has had to realize that things are not going as expected.
Ed is certain that live commerce à la TikTok Shop will never be as successful in the West as it is in China. And he gives good reasons for this, such as the completely different culture in Western countries. In China, shoppers will also spend hours with live shopping, if only because there is little else to entertain them. In addition, the retail landscape is much less developed, with a lack of shopping opportunities.
Now, TikTok has also realized that it will take much longer for live commerce to be successful in the West. The new tactic is to focus first on short videos and streams, as well as on search-based action, known in China as “shelf commerce”, and to gradually build up live commerce in the background.
What does this mean for brands in Europe? According to analysts, TikTok could account for 10% of online sales in a few years. Amazon would then continue to be something of a market leader, alongside Temu, with perhaps 10 to 15% market share. That means being prepared to secure your piece of the pie may make sense for many brands. But the hype should be treated with caution.
Want to know more? For example, what the multichannel networks and the lack of a TikTok agency landscape in the West are all about? Or that the Chinese TikTok version Douyin has an estimated 500 billion dollars in sales in China? Then tune in to the new episode 104, it’s worth it!
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcast. Or watch the YouTube recording below.
Then you’ll also find out which products do particularly well in live shopping (spoiler: L’Oréal is doing really well) and why brands are sometimes more trusted than the shopping presenters.