TikTok has been embracing online shopping and businesses over the last few years. They have moved a long way from being merely an app where people lip-synched to their favorite tunes and become one of the leading platforms for social commerce.
TikTok officially launched TikTok Shop in mid-2021, initially trialing it in a selection of Asian countries, later expanding their trial to the United Kingdom. They opened it up to United States users in September 2023 (after a short beta period) to make social commerce available to a wide audience.
In the process, they have made TikTok a specialized search engine for those preferring to shop online without leaving their favorite social app. Holders of TikTok business accounts can now sell within TikTok and use Live Shopping and shopping videos. Our State of Marketing 2024 Report finds that 51.9% of US-based marketers sell on TikTok Shop.
So how successful has TikTok Shop been? How much revenue has it generated and what have people used TikTok shop to buy? Has using social media had much impact on consumers’ shopping decisions? To answer these questions and more, we have collated as many TikTok Shop stats as we could find.
Top 13 TikTok Shop Stats for 2024:
- 1. More Than 80% of TikTok Shop Sales to Date Have Been in Southeast Asia, But There Have Now Been Notable Sales in the USA and the UK (in Terms of Value)
- 2. More Than 95% of Sales by Volume were Made in Southeast Asia
- 3. 11% of US Households Have Made a TikTok Shop Purchase
- 4. More Than 50,000 TikTok Shops in Indonesia
- 5. Wide Variety of Stores on TikTok Shop, But the Largest Categories are Womenswear & Underwear and Beauty & Personal Care (Nearly 15K Stores Each)
- 6. Nearly 5% of all Stores on TikTok Shop and 4.5% of Sales (GMV) Relate to Muslim Fashion
- 7. Beauty & Personal Care Products Are the Highest-Grossing Category on TikTok Shop
- 8. TikTok Shop Sold More Than 2/3 of Total Social Shopping Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in February 2024
- 9. More Than 80% of TikTok Shop Sales Come from Repeat Customers
- 10. Shoppers Earning Between $55k-$90k a Year Are the Largest US Spenders on TikTok Shop
- 11. 18-24 Year-Olds 3.2x As Likely the Average Shopper to Spend Using TikTok Shop
- 12. TikTok Shop Was Expected to Lose Over $500 Million in the US in its First Year
- 13. 97% of TikTok Shop Customers Also Use Amazon (with 12% of Amazon’s, in turn, Using TikTok Shop)
1. More Than 80% of TikTok Shop Sales to Date Have Been in Southeast Asia, But There Have Now Been Notable Sales in the USA and the UK (in Terms of Value)
TikTok Shop has quickly become a popular way to shop, particularly in Southeast Asia. According to Aftership, the total Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of sales on TikTok to date has been $11.09 billion. GMV is defined as the total value of merchandise sold over a given period through a customer-to-customer (C2C) exchange site, i.e. the value of goods sold over an eCommerce platform.
An analysis of sales on TikTok Shop stores shows that Southeast Asian countries hold the top five positions on the platform in terms of GMV, totaling more than 80% of the Total GMV on the platform in the last year. The Total GMV and percentage share for these countries are:
- Thailand - $2.85 billion GMV, 25.66% share
- Vietnam - $2.31 billion GMV, 20.79% share
- Malaysia - $1.63 billion GMV, 14.68% share
- Philippines - $1.44 billion GMV, 12.98% share
- Indonesia - $1.34 billion GMV, 12.05% share
The United States of America and the United Kingdom are the next two countries in terms of GMV:
- United States - $853.32 million GMV, 7.70% share
- United Kingdon - $603.35 million GMV, 5.44% share
The main reason for this comparative disparity between nations relates to how TikTok rolled out TikTok Shop when in beta. The total GMV for the United States (and to a lesser extent the UK) relates to a considerably shorter selling period than it does for the Asian nations. As we see in the next stat, this is even more obvious when looking at sales volume. US and UK users have tended to spend much more per transaction, making their share of Gross Merchandise Value much higher than their share of the volume of sales.
2. More Than 95% of Sales by Volume were Made in Southeast Asia
We have noticed from the Aftership data that there have still been considerably more goods sold through TikTok Shop by stores in the original Southeast Asia trial countries than in the United States and the United Kingdom. And sales outside these markets have been very few indeed. 95.88% of sales have been made to TikTok users based in Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore.
Aftership doesn’t specify the time frame of its data, and it appears to cover from TikTok Shop’s inception. If that is the case, then it should be no surprise that the bulk of the sales made have gone to the original trial countries.
The total sales volume and the percentage share of sales volume on TikTok Shop so far has been:
- Thailand – 512.79 million sales, 25.84% share
- Philippines – 500.51 million sales, 25.22% share
- Malaysia – 311.03 million sales, 15.67% share
- Vietnam – 296.21 million sales, 14.93% share
- Indonesia – 272.9 million sales, 13.75% share
- United States – 45 million sales, 2.27% share
- United Kingdom – 42.39 million sales, 2.14% share
- Singapore – 3.4 million sales, 0.17% share
These figures will undoubtedly change once we have full-year figures for the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries with little or no participation in TikTok Shop to date.
3. 11% of US Households Have Made a TikTok Shop Purchase
The United States may still have a relatively low percentage of total TikTok Shop sales, but according to an Earnest Analytics Case Study on the platform credit card data indicates that over 11% of US households have made a TikTok Shop purchase since the platform’s debut in that country. TikTok’s already strong social media position gave its Shop the ability to quickly scale, taking advantage of its extensive advertising reach and promotions during the 2023 holiday season.
TikTok Shop sales peaked at 145% higher in November 2023 compared to its first month, although have stabilized at a (slightly) lower level since. By February 2024, US sales were 219.4% higher than in TikTok Shop’s first US month.
4. More Than 50,000 TikTok Shops in Indonesia
We have observed how, with TikTok Shop still being so new, most sales (both by GMV and volume) have occurred in Southeast Asia. Perhaps it is inevitable that the highest percentage of stores on the platform are also based in that part of the world, although the number of US TikTok Shops is comparatively higher than you would expect at this stage of the platform’s evolution.
Aftership reports that there are 264.48K stores in total selling via TikTok Shop. The geographical distribution of these stores is as follows:
- Indonesia – 54.28K stores, 20.52% share
- Thailand – 48.37K stores, 18.29% share
- Vietnam – 46.38K stores, 17.54% share
- Malaysia – 34.23K stores, 12.94% share
- United States – 31.29K stores, 11.83% share
- Philippines – 30.78K stores, 11.64% share
- United Kingdom – 16.38K stores, 6.19% share
- Singapore – 2.74K stores, 1.04% share
In addition to the above list, 38 stores sell on TikTok Shop that are based elsewhere.
5. Wide Variety of Stores on TikTok Shop, But the Largest Categories are Womenswear & Underwear and Beauty & Personal Care (Nearly 15K Stores Each)
As an indication of just how many different types of merchandise you can find on TikTok Shop, Aftership lumps more than half of TikTok Shop’s 264.5K stores together in the Other category (50.03%). It categorizes the remaining 132.16K stores into the following categories (the percentages shown are of the total stores figure):
- Womenswear & Underwear – 14.93K stores (5.64%)
- Beauty & Personal Care – 14.79K stores (5.59%)
- Home Supplies – 13.58K stores (5.13%)
- Menswear & Underwear – 13.43K stores (5.08%)
- Fashion Accessories – 13.25K stores (5.59%)
- Muslim Fashion – 12.95K stores (4.90%)
- Food & Beverages – 12.62K stores (4.77%)
- Phones & Electronics – 12.5K stores (4.72%)
- Shoes – 12.23K stores (4.62%)
- Sports & Outdoor – 11.89K stores (4.50%)
The above figures show that Clothing/Apparel is clearly the main type of product that businesses market in TikTok Shop. If we isolate Womenswear & Underwear, Menswear & Underwear, Fashion Accessories, Muslim Fashion, and Shoes, we find 66.79K stores (ignoring any niche apparel items included in Other), making up 25% of all TikTok Shops.
6. Nearly 5% of all Stores on TikTok Shop and 4.5% of Sales (GMV) Relate to Muslim Fashion
Western readers may be surprised to learn that there are 12.95K stores (5.59%) selling Muslim fashion on the platform. They have sold 96.92 million products (4.88%) and the value of these sales has been $506.00 million (4.56%).
However, this is very much related to TikTok having trialed TikTok Shop in Southeast Asia for longer than anywhere else. There are 277 million Muslims in Southeast Asia (40.8% of the region’s population), with 231 million Muslims in Indonesia alone. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Muslim fashion currently has such a prominent position in TikTok’s overall statistics at this time.
7. Beauty & Personal Care Products Are the Highest-Grossing Category on TikTok Shop
We have seen that stores at TikTok Shop sell products in a wide range of categories, so many that Aftership lumps half of them into an Other category to make reporting manageable. When you look at Gross Merchandise Value (GMV), however, there are a few categories that dominate TikTok sales. Remember, GMV reflects the monetary value of transactions within the TikTok eCommerce platform.
The highest-grossing product categories on TikTok Shop are:
- Beauty & Personal Care - $2.49 billion GMV, 22.50% share
- Womenswear & Underwear - $1.39 billion GMV, 12.56% share
- Menswear & Underwear - $893.54 million GMV, 8.06% share
- Food & Beverages - $759.84 million GMV, 6.85% share
- Health - $600.42 million GMV, 5.42% share
- Muslim Fashion - $506 million GMV, 4.56% share
- Home Supplies - $457.50 million GMV, 4.13% share
- Phones & Electronics - $430.50 million GMV, 3.88% share
- Baby & Maternity - $412.59 million GMV, 3.72% share
- Shoes - $403.50 million GMV, 3.64% share
8. TikTok Shop Sold More Than 2/3 of Total Social Shopping Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) in February 2024
According to the Earnest Analytics Case Study, TikTok Shop sold 68.1% of the total social shopping GMV in February 2024, livestream shopping app Whatnot captured 31% of GMV, and the remaining 0.9% was shared by Instagram Checkout, Facebook Shop, and Flip App. Clearly, social commerce is in its infancy and has been slower to take off than some originally projected. TikTok Shop outgunning its Meta competitors by such a large margin will have Mark Zuckerberg thinking hard, although these statistics don’t include trade on Facebook Marketplace. EMarketer notes that 64.6 million US consumers are expected to buy something via Facebook this year, compared to 40.7 million on TikTok when you include Facebook Marketplace sales.
9. More Than 80% of TikTok Shop Sales Come from Repeat Customers
The Earnest Analytics Case Study found that 81.3% of TikTok Shop sales came from existing customers in February 2024. This was up considerably from November 2023, when the repeat customer rate was only 64% - a logical change with TikTok Shop being so new in the US at that point.
This shows that TikTok Shop has proven popular with its early adopters who have continued to make purchases using the platform.
10. Shoppers Earning Between $55k-$90k a Year Are the Largest US Spenders on TikTok Shop
The Earnest Analytics Case Study also broke down the demographics of those who used the credit card system to make purchases via TikTok Shop. Earnest Analytics doesn’t specify it, but their commentary suggests all their data relates to USA purchases only.
They found that TikTok Shop sales grew fastest among shoppers earning between $55k-$90k a year during its first 6 months in the USA. This range straddles the US median income. This suggests that TikTok Shoppers skew slightly more affluent than the average TikTok user (who is typically a Gen Z).
11. 18-24 Year-Olds 3.2x As Likely the Average Shopper to Spend Using TikTok Shop
While it tends to be relatively affluent shoppers who use TikTok Shop, that doesn’t mean that TikTok’s typical Gen Z users aren’t purchasing on the platform. The likelihood that different-aged shoppers spend on TikTok Shop decreases with each older age group, although shoppers seem to prefer using the platform more than average shoppers up until their mid-50s. According to the Earnest Analytics Case Study, compared to the average shopper:
- 18-24-year-olds are 3.2x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
- 25-34-year-olds are 1.8x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
- 35-44-year-olds are 1.3x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
- 45-54-year-olds are 1.1x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
- 55-64-year-olds are 0.7x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
- 65+ year-olds are 0.3x more likely to use TikTok Shop than the average shopper
12. TikTok Shop Was Expected to Lose Over $500 Million in the US in its First Year
The Information reported that TikTok was expecting to lose over $500 million in the US in its first year thanks to ByteDance’s significant investments to hire staff, build a fulfillment network, and incentivize sellers by offering free listings, free shipping, zero commissions, and warehousing space. TikTok expected that daily shopping volume would steadily rise, possibly exceeding $10 million by year-end. As we can see from the GMV figures above it isn’t at that level yet, but TikTok Shop appears to be popular with US consumers, and it will be interesting to see actual results for TikTok Shop’s first US year.
13. 97% of TikTok Shop Customers Also Use Amazon (with 12% of Amazon’s, in turn, Using TikTok Shop)
In perhaps the least surprising statistic from the Earnest Analytics Case Study we highlight here, nearly all TikTok Shop purchasers (97%) also shop at Amazon. Arguably more interestingly, 55% of TikTok Shop users shop at Etsy, 39% use Temu, 38% Old Navy, and 37% Shein.
Conversely, 12% of Amazon’s customers use TikTok Shop, and 17% of Etsy’s customers use the platform, as do 25% of Temu’s customers, 16% of Old Navy’s customers, and 28% of Shein’s customers.
Wrapping Things Up
TikTok Shop is still in its early days – it is still only available in Southeast Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom – but it is rapidly growing as a popular way for TikTok users to engage in eCommerce. It is already a major force in social commerce, arguably performing better than Meta’s equivalent offerings on Facebook and Instagram.
It will be particularly interesting to see how these statistics change once TikTok Shop has operated in the US for over a year, and once TikTok expands it to the rest of the world.
