TikTok had decided to shelve its plans for expanding TikTok Shop into U.S. territory after the initial launch in the United Kingdom proved disastrous.
It’s very weird to talk about a platform such as TikTok, a platform that has done nothing but succeed in every endeavor, intentionally or otherwise, take such a big loss. This is the same social media giant that got banned in multiple countries, shrugged its shoulders, continued to get more popular, and was ultimately unbanned in many of them. Not to mention just how lucrative advertisement is on the platform as a whole; between the young generations that it mostly caters to, an abundance of promotional material, and being the current biggest name in the social media game, TikTok Shop sounds like a no-brainer of an idea. However, not only was it not a no-brainer, the entire concept could have used much more thought than was actually implemented in execution.
Online shopping is all the rage nowadays, and many social media platforms have managed to integrate the trend successfully into their respective interfaces. Some, such as Instagram and Facebook, have set up shops for the purposes of selling branded merchandise, allowing creators to get in on the action as well. Snapchat came up with honestly the most creative outlet for such e-commerce, combining its AR and VR technology to allow users the ability to wear accessories and clothes before making any purchases. Naturally, TikTok felt that it could easily make an exorbitant amount of money off of such an endeavor. If Facebook could do it, the gen Z darling definitely could as well, right? Live-streamed shopping content has done so well in China and via Snapchat in the USA, clearly TikTok could do this as well. However, the transpired events put a rather large damper on any such recent proceedings.
First off is the fact that TikTok’s hiring practices for the new TikTok Shop project could have met the bare minimum of HR prerequisites. Instead, we got ourselves Joshua Ma of ByteDance who, after being transferred to work on TikTok Shop for Europe, was fired after disagreeing with maternity leave. In fact, twenty members of the original London team left the initiative, either of their own accord or otherwise.
Second is the fact that ByteDance clearly has no intention of treating its hires with any level of leeway. Many of the London employees complained that the company would actively induce burnout for the purposes of getting more work done. Finally, there’s just a general lack of advertisement regarding the new Shop feature, making this idea a massive failure.
H/T: FT.
Read next: New data shows US citizens spend more time on TikTok, leaving behind Facebook, as per eMarketer’s report
It’s very weird to talk about a platform such as TikTok, a platform that has done nothing but succeed in every endeavor, intentionally or otherwise, take such a big loss. This is the same social media giant that got banned in multiple countries, shrugged its shoulders, continued to get more popular, and was ultimately unbanned in many of them. Not to mention just how lucrative advertisement is on the platform as a whole; between the young generations that it mostly caters to, an abundance of promotional material, and being the current biggest name in the social media game, TikTok Shop sounds like a no-brainer of an idea. However, not only was it not a no-brainer, the entire concept could have used much more thought than was actually implemented in execution.
Online shopping is all the rage nowadays, and many social media platforms have managed to integrate the trend successfully into their respective interfaces. Some, such as Instagram and Facebook, have set up shops for the purposes of selling branded merchandise, allowing creators to get in on the action as well. Snapchat came up with honestly the most creative outlet for such e-commerce, combining its AR and VR technology to allow users the ability to wear accessories and clothes before making any purchases. Naturally, TikTok felt that it could easily make an exorbitant amount of money off of such an endeavor. If Facebook could do it, the gen Z darling definitely could as well, right? Live-streamed shopping content has done so well in China and via Snapchat in the USA, clearly TikTok could do this as well. However, the transpired events put a rather large damper on any such recent proceedings.
First off is the fact that TikTok’s hiring practices for the new TikTok Shop project could have met the bare minimum of HR prerequisites. Instead, we got ourselves Joshua Ma of ByteDance who, after being transferred to work on TikTok Shop for Europe, was fired after disagreeing with maternity leave. In fact, twenty members of the original London team left the initiative, either of their own accord or otherwise.
Second is the fact that ByteDance clearly has no intention of treating its hires with any level of leeway. Many of the London employees complained that the company would actively induce burnout for the purposes of getting more work done. Finally, there’s just a general lack of advertisement regarding the new Shop feature, making this idea a massive failure.
H/T: FT.
Read next: New data shows US citizens spend more time on TikTok, leaving behind Facebook, as per eMarketer’s report
