Tiktok made a shattering entry into the social networks market in 2017. This could be the same with Tiktok Shop, on the e-commerce market.
As a reminder, Tiktok Shop is the possibility of buying on its Tiktok application; This therefore brings together, for the first time, discovery, commitment and transaction within a single platform. With more than 20 million monthly active users in France, who therefore become 20 million potential consumers, shopping becomes spontaneous, community and viral.
Tiktok is not based on a logic of research, but of discovery. The purchase does not come from an expressed need, but from content that generates desire or creates a need. The consumer is first of all a user who connects to Tiktok to have fun and share. This is called the discovery commerce. The content becomes the engine of the sale. He shows, inspires, convinces … and allows you to buy in a few clicks, fluidly, without leaving Tiktok.
It has long been believed to be reserved for the Chinese market where the liveshopping represents, in 2024, already more than 60 % of overall e-commerce. And after a first post-Covid buzz in Europe, the liveshopping seemed to have missed his entry. But the problem was not the format, but the container: on traditional e-commerce sites, lives were technically wobbly, not very engaging, and especially without native traffic. On Tiktok, this format is native, designed for the mobile, interactive, and above all carried by a massive audience. We recreate the demonstration produced, live, in a close language, with a real proximity where thehost Can interact with its audience, answer questions and drive its sale live.
Tiktok Shop also introduces another discreet revolution: the rise of affiliates. These content creators, sometimes very far from the “influencer” profile, become real salespeople 2.0, capable of generating turnover for a brand without even having to manage the direct relationship. The system is simple: they accept product offers, create video content or liveand perceive a commission on each sale generated. The model is a winner-win, scalable, and is based on a logic of impact rather than image, with necessarily a positive king for brands since the affiliate is only remunerated on the sales he generates.
Make
This model also transforms the way in which brands interact with their audience. Because on Tiktok, the challenge is not to make aesthetic or glamorous, but to be true. This implies accepting a form of loss of creative control, leaving creators – affiliates, influencers or even employees – talk about the brand in their own way. And it works.
Tiktok is based on a logic peer-to-peer Where users trust their peers to recommend products or talk about a brand with their languages and codes. What works is authenticity, spontaneity, concrete demonstration. Brands must therefore produce differently, think social nativeand constantly test.
However, this transformation raises legitimate questions in many French brands. Less on the relevance of the model – they are already convinced that Tiktok Shop represents a real opportunity – than on their ability to keep pace and feed the platform.
The real subject is execution. This is where our role takes on its full meaning: allowing them to access a turnkey solution, to partially or completely delegate this new value chain to experts who know the platform, its algorithm, its codes, its formats … and which know how to produce large -scale content. Clearly: offer them the means to follow the rhythm, without undergoing an almost structural transformation.
Impact on e-commerce
Because beyond operational issues, Tiktok Shop also comes to ask a wider question: that of the very evolution of e-commerce. The opportunity he represents already resumed the cards of the model marketplace. Where the latter still focus on active research and rational comparison, Tiktok Shop is essential with a model based on discovery, emotion and social recommendation. In the United States, this turn is started: Amazon himself considers Tiktok Shop as an actor to monitor very closely, more than any other marketplace. In Europe, this hybrid model-at the crossroads of entertainment and conversion-could well transform an e-commerce still very linear. Because Tiktok does not be added to the existing channels: it changes the way in which we capture attention … and which we sell.
Of course, Tiktok Shop is only in its infancy in France, but the bases are already solid. The audience is there, and the uses go in the direction of social commerce : This model works. Brands that get started early take a step ahead. They learn, adapt, optimize… because Tiktok – and Tiktok Shop – are above all the environments of test & learnwhere, once again, there is no unique recipe applicable to all sellers. The social commerce is therefore no longer an emerging trend, but a structural tilting. Tiktok Shop is the catalyst. It remains to be seen who will make it a lever for growth … and who will remain a spectator.
