The popular video app TikTok plans to launch an e-commerce platform in early August with the idea of selling “Made in China” products in the US market, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing sources close to the file, Agerpres reports.
TikTok’s goal would be to replicate in the US the success of other Chinese trading platforms Shein and Temu.
According to the WSJ, upcoming e-commerce platform TikTok will be responsible for warehousing and shipping goods on behalf of manufacturers and merchants in China. This move by TikTok to enter the e-commerce segment comes at a time when the video app has caught the eye of US officials concerned about data security.
TikTok is fighting to avoid a US ban after US lawmakers introduced a bill that would give the Biden administration the power to ban apps that pose security threats.
The TikTok app, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, has seen explosive growth in users worldwide in recent years, despite coming under scrutiny from regulators in the US and elsewhere.
TikTok has now reached one billion active users worldwide, but the US is its biggest market.
European authorities have also targeted TikTok, threatening to ban the platform in the EU if it does not comply with new regulations on digital services and consumer protection.
TikTok also wants to compete with Elon Musk’s Twitter
The move, reported by WSJ reporters on Tuesday, comes just a day after TikTok launched a new tool that allows users to post text-only messages, a first on the previously image-based platform, allowing it to compete directly with Twitter.
The new feature allows users to “share their stories, poems, lyrics (songs) and other types of written content, giving creators another way to express themselves,” the subsidiary of Chinese group ByteDance said in a statement.
TikTok allows users who create written content to add sound, provide location, authorize comments, or allow other users to use the Duets mode, which allows users to post their own messages alongside those of other creators.
Built on the short videos that made it so popular, TikTok is looking to expand its offering. In particular, it gradually increased the maximum length of its videos from 15 seconds at the time of its launch in 2017 to 10 minutes in order to compete with one of its main competitors, YouTube, which in turn created short YouTube Shorts formats inspired by TikTok.
This new text format is another alternative to the king of text social media, Twitter, renamed Monday X, whose hegemony is increasingly challenged.
Source: Hot News
Lori Barajas is an accomplished journalist, known for her insightful and thought-provoking writing on economy. She currently works as a writer at 247 news reel. With a passion for understanding the economy, Lori’s writing delves deep into the financial issues that matter most, providing readers with a unique perspective on current events.