• by Colin Kirkland , August 23, 2023

Looking to move away from third-party shopping links, TikTok is ending its “Storefront” feature and pushing TikTok Shop.

After September 12, advertisers will no longer be able to run active shopping ads using Storefront.

“Your Storefront products will no longer be visible on your TikTok profile, or be eligible for inclusion in short videos, Lives and ads,” the company wrote in a recent blog post. “You will also lose access to your Storefront on Store Manager.”

“It’s important to migrate from your Storefront to TikTok Shop as soon as possible,” TikTok added, urging advertisers to adopt the fully integrated and “seamless” shopping experience.

TikTok's Storefronts, launched in 2021, have been dedicated to helping merchants display their products in-stream, then sell via Shopify.

Now, the company wants them to transition over to TikTok Shop, which it says takes care of product discovery, product details, checkout, and post-payment activity all within the app.

Parent company ByteDance made in-app shopping massively popular in Asian markets through TikTok's Chinese counterpart, Douyin.

By devoting its platform to native shopping elements, the company is attempting to diversify its revenue stream from advertising while challenging Amazon and popular Chinese shopping platforms such as Shein and Temu, which have been successful in the U.S. market.

However, with lukewarm results in Western markets, TikTok is depending on users to adopt in-app shopping for its monetization plans to take hold.

After TikTok ends Storefront, brands will no longer have access to data reporting in Store Manager, but will be able to see past ads data in Ads Manager, the company says.

Merchants can also export their data from the Store Manager before September 12.