Brands and retailers are clambering to be part of TikTok Shop – among them Nivea, Britvic, Andrex, Holland & Barrett and Lidl. It’s little wonder. The number of UK shoppers using the social media marketplace doubled last year. “And some sellers are bossing it,” explained influencer Mariam Musa in The Secrets of TikTok Shop: Untold (Channel 4, online).
Entertainment plus a short path to purchase proves addictive for consumers. “I can get into a habit, going into a loophole of adding things to my basket and all at once just buying it,” Musa said.
“When I’m on there, I’m not thinking I’m going to buy something,” Musa’s mate Adeola admitted. Rather she’s “just chilling” and a must-have product “just pops up”.
“Babe, you just press it and you’ve bought it,” she added.
Musa visited the Yass Clean channel during one of its livestream selling events, which attracted 3,600 viewers over the hour. That footfall in a physical store would be “Christmas come early for an established brand” Musa said.
The mops, brushes and bleach-shifting stream wasn’t so far removed in style from TV shopping channels. The difference, Yass Clean’s Luke explained, was the instant customer service – a comment can be read and responded to in real time. The programme also tackled the legalities of seller strategies like flash sales and engineered scarcity. A legal expert questioned the pricing tactics of Holland & Barrett’s livestream.
The programme ended with a warning of the inevitable enshitification of the platform, as bigger brands muscle out challengers and organic content disappears in place of paid-for ads. As Musa put it, what once was “a place where anyone could make it big” is now simply “trying to take more of my money”.
No comments yet