TikTok’s in-stream shopping push still hasn’t caught on the way that it would like, but TikTok commerce is growing. Slower than it did in the Chinese version of the app, for sure, but the platform is now bringing in a heap of money from its steadily rising in-app sales.
And TikTok’s latest Black Friday sales figures underline this.
Last year, TikTok reported a record $100 million in sales on Black Friday, and this year TikTok has once again seen a rise in Black Friday buying activity.
As per TikTok:
“With this year's Black Friday & Cyber Monday 2025 campaign wrapped, we saw nearly 50% more shoppers who bought something on TikTok Shop in the U.S., compared to the BFCM campaign period last year. And over the four-day shopping period alone, TikTok Shop saw extraordinary growth, with sales exceeding $500 million.”
So while it hasn’t become a transformative trend as yet, more people are buying more stuff within TikTok, with its in-stream buying options and ads driving increase shopping activity over time.
TikTok says that live shopping, in particular, is gaining traction:
“When compared to last year's BFCM campaign period, brands and sellers hosting livestreams experienced 84% sales growth during this year's; and, shoppers tuned into over 760K livestream sessions hosted by sellers and their favorite creators, generating over 1.6 billion views.”
TikTok creator affiliates also posted nearly 10 million shoppable videos over the weekend, adding to the expansion of in-app shopping activity, and driving more potential for TikTok’s shopping push.
In-stream shopping is TikTok’s big money-making hope, following the same model that it has in its Chinese homeland, where in-app buying has become a key focus, and the main driver of revenue for the local version of the app.
For comparison, Douyin, the Chinese version of the app, is on track to exceed $US500 billion in GMV (gross merchandise volume) this year, a huge result that continues to grow at a rapid rate, and underlines why TikTok is so keen to make in-app shopping a bigger element.
TikTok itself is reportedly set to bring in around $US130 billion GMV for 2025. Which is a long way off of Douyin’s result, but it would also represent a 100% jump in total in-app sales on last year.
TikTok’s aggressive shopping push has led to various internal conflicts about the right approach to take to translate its success in China to other regions. At the same time, the threat of losing access to the U.S., TikTok’s main shopping market, could also derail its plans on this front.
But while Western consumers haven’t as readily taken up TikTok’s in-app shopping options, the data shows that things are changing, and TikTok’s shopping push may well end up being the key earning pathway for the app.
Maybe.
The biggest challenge for TikTok in this regard may well be habitual behaviors, and the preference among Western consumers to keep their social/entertainment and shopping activity separate, and in separate platforms that they trust for each.
The latest numbers from TikTok suggest that this could be changing, with its expanded efforts to protect consumers from fraud, and deliver a better shopping experience, also contributing to the broader adoption of its in-stream buying options.
