TikTok is doubling down on live shopping and training its sellers

• TikTok just hosted its first summit for its e-commerce partners in the US.
• The company spent much of the event pushing TikTok Shop partners to test live sales.
• Participants with experience on TikTok’s Chinese sister app Douyin shared insights.

TikTok is gearing up for the holiday season on its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop.

A few weeks ago, around the first anniversary of the product’s US launch, TikTok gathered about 300 Shop partners from 200 agencies in a hotel near its office in Culver City, California, for its first partner-only summit on invitations.

The group participated in panels, participated in feedback sessions with TikTok employees, and shared ideas about influencer affiliate marketing and paid and earned media tactics. But live sales were the focus of the event, five partners who attended told Business Insider. During the sessions, TikTok employees and agency partners talked about how to find studio space for live streams, as well as what it took to build a live sales operation.

“Probably 60 percent to 70 percent of the discussion was around the live stream,” said Jake Bjorseth, founder of marketing firm Trndsttrs, who attended the summit.

A second partner who attended the event described its content as “live, live, live”. This person, as well as several others, have been granted anonymity to protect their business dealings with TikTok. Their identity is known to BI.

Why did TikTok focus so much on live streams at its first US Shop partner summit?

Well, for one, TikTok has had a string of successful live sales events in the US and UK this year, during which companies such as beauty brand P.Louise and Stormi Steele’s Canvas Beauty have sold over 1 million dollars in one go. stream, according to the platform.

The summit invite list may also have played a role in focusing the discussion around live selling. Several of the participants were partners who had experience selling on TikTok’s Chinese sister app Douyin, which generates hundreds of billions in sales each year, mostly through influencer live streams. These partners provided advice on what has worked well for social shopping in Asia and discussed potential cross-border partnership opportunities, three Shop partners in attendance told BI.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

What works on Douyin won’t necessarily work on TikTok Shop

Strategies that are successful on Douyin often end up on TikTok, and the two companies, which operate independently under their parent company ByteDance, have been sharing a lot of ideas lately.

Last month, Douyin and ByteDance invited TikTok Shop partners to visit the Chinese cities of Shanghai and Hangzhou to meet regional social commerce partners and see the studios they use to film shopping content. Digital advertising firm adQuadrant was among several companies selected for the visit, according to its CEO, Warren Jolly, who spoke at the US TikTok Partner Summit.

Of course, live selling tactics on Douyin won’t necessarily translate well to TikTok in the US. Social shopping has been slow to take off in North America, compared to Asia, because cross-border shopping behaviors of consumers can be difficult.

“If you’ve lived in China, you’re of Chinese descent, you’ve built this business over the last seven years focused on live shopping and social commerce,” Jolly said. But he added that experience selling in China may not help U.S. sellers who face a much different e-commerce reality. “Yes, live shopping is important. We understand that it will become ubiquitous in the Western world and the US market. But it will not be in the same way as what is happening in China,” he said.

Other TikTok Shop partners who spoke to BI agreed that the event’s emphasis on live streams and comparisons to the Asian market weren’t particularly helpful when many of their TikTok Shop sales currently come from influencer videos, more rather than from live streams.

“I can tell you that I came out of that (summit) and said, ‘Oh, this is a great opportunity in live streaming,’ but the actual financials don’t make sense for most agencies,” Bjorseth said.

TikTok’s ability to replicate Douyin’s success in live shopping in the US may be difficult, even though the company has been beating its e-commerce competitors in sales and repeat purchases in recent months. US e-commerce is dominated by non-social players such as Amazon and Walmart, both of which work with influencers on live streams or affiliate programs, but predominantly drive sales through other means.

However, there are some signs that live shopping is on the rise outside of Asia. Whatnot, a live shopping platform in North America and Europe, said in an October report that it has surpassed $2 billion in gross merchandise volume from live sales in 2024.

Ultimately, however, TikTok’s e-commerce momentum may be cut short. A US divestment or ban law passed in April could force the sale or ban of the TikTok app in the US. TikTok is challenging the law in court. Several attendees said the prospect of a ban was not brought up at the company’s TikTok Shop partner summit.