👉 Background: Whether you love it or hate it, TikTok is making waves and shaping culture all over the world - whether it be #girlmath or asking partners how often they think about the Roman Empire.

👉 What happened: Now, TikTok isn't just looking to shape culture, but also shape people's shopping habits. Recently, TikTok announced its TikTok Shop. The shop tab will enable TikTok users to buy products in-app. While this is first rolling out in early October in the US, the plan is to get this around the universe if successful.

👉 What else: Videos with the hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has had 880 million views in the past 7 days. So clearly, the Tok has some serious influence.

What's the key learning?

💡Companies want to capitalise on the behaviour that's already ingrained in their user base. TikTok is taking cues from how people already use the platform and turning them into monetisable features.

💡TikTok users already make purchases based on what they see on the app - so rather than send users off to sites like Amazon to make the purchase, TikTok is planning to own the whole value chain and take a clip of the revenue along the way.

💡Although social commerce hasn’t quite worked out for Meta and Pinterest.. TikTok’s owner has a track record of success with its sister app Douyin.

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