TikTok may be offering its app’s U.S. users a new online retail store experience, according to a Semafor report.
This new shop is not to be confused with TikTok Shop; it will be its own entity. For this new ecommerce venture, TikTok will directly handle customer service and purchase its own inventory, as opposed to the TikTok Shop experience wherein the heavy lifting falls on third-party brands who pay commission to sell their products via the platform.
The goods sold on this new store, which are set to range from toys and trinkets to kitchen tools, will largely originate from Chinese manufacturers. Any inherent problems with that setup are designed to be counteracted by TikTok overseeing logistics and customer care.
Users will be able to engage this new retail experience via a dedicated ecommerce tab in the TikTok app.
A job listing on TikTok’s careers page indicates there is, indeed, a new shopping experience coming to the popular video-sharing app.
“We are looking for business leaders to drive the growth for TikTok Shop’s newest e-commerce feature – TikTok Shop Shopping Center,” the job listing reads. “TikTok Shop Shopping Center serves as a central hub where users can easily discover promotions (campaigns & flash sale), a wider product assortment from across our TikTok Shop merchants recommended through shoppable content (in-feed video, product showcase and LIVEs) as well as manage their orders all natively within one tab.”
This would be the latest effort by TikTok to break into the virtual retail scene, which is currently seeing a bit of a shakeup as competitors like Temu attempt to nab a piece of the pie from giants such as Amazon. TikTok specifically has the additional challenge of national scrutiny to wrestle with, given that the app’s been outright banned in a U.S. state and the federal government is continually whittling away at its influence elsewhere.
A TikTok representative did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
