at the firing line
In the U.S., ByteDance will generate more than $17 billion in sales this year and sees an opportunity to become a legitimate competitor to Amazon.com. For that matter, his two other Chinese-owned sites, Temu and Shein, also have convenient deals selling cheap goods to Americans.
TikTok requires caution. There are already calls to block the sale of Temu in the United States over concerns that forced labor is used to make the ultra-cheap product. How can TikTok ensure that items in the TikTok Shop, many of which are also sold on Temu, are not the result of similar fraudulent activity? (TikTok declined to comment.)
The app has already become a flashpoint over data privacy and Chinese ownership, and the storm over untrusted e-commerce stores could push Congress to the brink of banning it entirely.
Even without political intervention, TikTok's descent is a gift to the meta-platform. For the past few years, Mark Zuckerberg has watched TikTok with concern, worrying that it will co-opt the next generation who have left Instagram behind. Fortunately for him, TikTok has proven to be even more clumsy in its monetization efforts.
And the infiltration of older people is rapid, with 40 percent of TikTok users in the U.S. now in their 30s and 40s, and this group is growing faster than any other user, according to a Pew study. TikTok shops are an inevitable byproduct of this demographic. Some of its most popular products are the kind you've seen before on his QVC and other incredibly long and boring infomercials.
The free marketization of America's fastest-growing social network has not garnered much attention from users, and despite considerable notoriety, the company has done little to address concerns. Videos from popular users like Brody Wellmaker reflect that vibe. “I don't shop at the TikTok Shop!” he yelled into the camera, with more than 45,000 comments unanimously agreeing.
Rather than forcing its e-commerce strategy, users want the company to invest in repairing its broken relationship with Universal Music Group, which caused millions of songs to disappear from the platform. ByteDance needs to ask whether its experimental low-rent shop is really worth the damage it's doing to what makes TikTok worth using in the first place.
