TikTok may not abandon live shopping in the United States after all. According to a reliable report, the business is planning to collaborate with TalkShopLive to develop live shopping functionality in North America.
TalkShopLive is a live shopping platform established in Los Angeles that, according to the Financial Times, is utilized by corporations such as Walmart and Microsoft’s MSN to host shopping livestreams. TikTok may allegedly use TalkShopLive’s technology via the agreement to enable artists to hold live shopping sessions on TikTok while also providing companies the option to concurrently broadcast the stream to their own websites.
According to reports, TikTok was pulling down live shopping in the US and Europe after experiencing underwhelming results from its experiment in the UK. While the company’s agreement with TalkShopLive isn’t written in stone, it might imply that TikTok isn’t abandoning its live shopping intentions just yet – at least not in North America.
If TikTok goes forward with the arrangement, the Financial Times reports that live shopping might happen “within the next month with significant companies,” just in time for the Christmas season. TikTok has been experimenting with retail functionality since last year and has now created a separate Shop option in the app for Indonesian users.
Outside of Asia, where Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sibling app, has had success with QVC-style livestreams, live shopping has yet to take hold. This hasn’t prevented firms like TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Amazon from testing the service outside of the area. Even Facebook has experimented with live shopping, but the company stated in August that it is discontinuing the service in order to concentrate on Reels.
TikTok said that it is “constantly investigating new and varied alternatives for how we may best serve our community, artists, and merchants in countries throughout the globe,” which might include “partnerships that further enable a smooth eCommerce experience for merchants.”
