TikTok Scales Back Live-Stream Commerce Ambitions, Which Could Be a Big Blow for the App
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Loading... - Peter Larsen
- 06 Jul 2022
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TikTok’s facing a significant reassessment in its business expansion plans, with the company forced to scale back its live eCommerce initiative in Europe due to operational challenges and lack of consumer interest.
TikTok has been working to integrate live-stream shopping after seeing major success with the option in the version of the app. But its initial efforts in the have been hampered by various problems.
As reported by The Financial Times:
“TikTok had planned to launch the feature in the first half of this year, before expanding later in 2022, according to several people briefed on the matter. But the expansion plans have been dropped after the project failed to meet targets and influencers dropped out of the scheme, three people said.”
TikTok has since refuted some of FT’s claims, saying that the reported timeline for its commerce push is incorrect, and that it’s focused on fixing problems with its operation before expanding, which is still in its roadmap. But the basis – that its program is not going as smoothly as planned – is correct.
TikTok’s shopping push has also faced internal problems due to conflicts over working culture and management.
Last month, reports surfaced that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance had been imposing tough conditions on its commerce staff, including regular 12-hour days, improbable sales targets, and questions over entitlements.
Now, it seems like the combination of challenges has led to a new growth dilemma for the app - which once again underlines the variance between western app usage trends.
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