As part of its continued push to drive in-stream shopping, TikTok’s also needs to ensure shopper safety and trust, in order to improve its standing, and get more people buying via TikTok clips.
Because right now, TikTok users still seem largely lukewarm on social shopping, preferring instead to buy products from trusted, dedicated commerce platforms.
On this front, TikTok has published its latest TikTok Shop Safety Report, which outlines all of the various actions that it’s taken to protect consumers, and improve the in-app shopping experience.
As explained by TikTok:
“TikTok Shop’s vision for a new kind of shopping culture is built on transparency and community protection. Our updated Safety Report demonstrates our dedication to sharing our ongoing efforts to protect users while fighting fraud, counterfeits, and policy violations. By documenting our progress and sharing key data publicly, we're demonstrating our commitment to establishing the platform as a trusted e-commerce destination where discovery and safety go hand in hand.”
Highlighting its evolving efforts on this front, TikTok reports that:
- Between January and June 2025, 1.4 million seller registration applications were declined for not meeting TikTok Shop’s standards
- More than 700k sellers were removed, primarily due to shop closures caused by shop-level violations.
- Over 70 million product listings were rejected during the first half of 2025, with most being due to counterfeit or unsafe products
- 200,000 listings of prohibited or restricted products were taken down after listing
TikTok also notes that it incorporates a range of risk prevention measures within the TikTok Shop sign-up process, including “a meticulous verification process,” and the submission of proof of identity and business registration documentation.
“New sellers also undergo a probation period, which limits daily orders and product listings until they show they understand and can adhere to marketplace rules.”
Through these combined measures, TikTok’s working to improve the shopper experience, and ensure that more people feel safe in making purchases in the app.
Which, as noted, is a key consideration of TikTok’s expanded shopping push, because Western shoppers, in variance to those in Asian markets, still seem mostly untrusting of social media commerce.
Why would that be? Well, just last week, a new report indicated that Meta knowingly generates around $16 billion per year from scam ads, which its system allows to run, despite it detecting questionable elements within these promotions.
That leads a lot of people falling victim to scam promotions. Indeed, according to data from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, around 23% of adults globally lost money to scams in 2024, with Facebook being the second most cited source of such activity (WhatsApp came in first).
As such, you can see why consumers might be hesitant to buy in-stream. The situation is different in China, where eCommerce has become the key revenue source for the local version of TikTok, because of tighter regulatory controls and measures.
But TikTok’s parent company ByteDance remains committed to following the same monetization pathway with TikTok, which is why ensuring consumer safety is a key consideration and focus.
Maybe, that’ll eventually drive more take-up of its in-stream shopping options.
