TikTok is now actually a shopping platform, according to Business Insider. TikTok Shop was the No. 3 fastest-growing brand in the U.S. in 2025, according to a November Morning Consult report on consumer purchase consideration. The app also drove over $500 million in the U.S. during the stretch between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Big brands like Samsung, Disney, and Ralph Lauren have all signed up for TikTok Shop in recent months, despite previous hesitation to sell in an unproven marketplace. Razor brand Harry’s is paying as much as $150,000 a year to hire an in-house “TikTok Shop manager” who will monitor the app full-time.
While TikTok Shop isn’t as popular as more mature platforms like Amazon and Walmart, it is gaining popularity with the next generation of consumers, whom it is training to watch videos and shop at the same time.
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“More consumers are using social media to buy, to browse, to look for things to buy, and that is coinciding with TikTok Shop’s growth this year,” Bobby Blanchard, Morning Consult’s senior director of audience development, told Business Insider.
TikTok Shop sells a wide range of products, including beauty items, electronics, and pre-owned luxury handbags. The company benefits from its numerous Shop Creators, who often appear more “authentic” than most brands when they sell goods via videos.
It wasn’t easy for TikTok Shop to gain its footing in the U.S., with some users being turned off by the influx of shopping videos. However, 2026 appears to be promising for TikTok Shop in the U.S., for two reasons.
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Firstly, the uncertainty surrounding the status of TikTok in the U.S might be on its way out. TikTok CEO Shou Chew recently told employees in a memo that the company has signed the deal backed by President Donald Trump to spin off its U.S. assets. This deal brings the company closer to securing its future in the U.S. A law passed last year required TikTok’s U.S. operations to be divested from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or banned entirely in the U.S. This deal comes after multiple extensions of the deadline for the app to divest or face a ban. Secondly, U.S. consumers are finally getting used to buying things on TikTok Shop. It is no longer considered an intrusion on the video feed.
TikTok parent-company ByteDance operates a sister app called Douyin, which is an e-commerce powerhouse driving hundreds of billions of dollars in sales annually. Features that are successful on Douyin often end up on TikTok next.