• by Colin Kirkland , January 30, 2024

In an effort to further expand its rapidly growing e-commerce business in the U.S., TikTok, the video-sharing platform owned by ByteDance, is testing a new feature that would link real-world products to any posts on the app. This would theoretically mean that all videos users would see shoppable content.

According to Bloomberg, which first reported the story, the feature is able to automatically identify objects in user videos and then persuades viewers to “find similar items on TikTok Shop,” the company’s e-commerce offering. Viewers will then be presented with a page of products, which they can click on to buy.

The feature, which TikTok says is in limited testing, has the power to set a new precedent on the app. Presently, only approved influencers and brands are able to tag products when posting content to TikTok. This feature would expand the use of e-commerce links posted directly by TikTok.

Earlier this month, Bloombergreported on internal information highlighting TikTok's plans to grow TikTok Shop tenfold in the U.S. to $17.5 billion in 2024.

The company, which is basing its e-commerce revenue goals on the proven success of China's doppelganger app Douyin, is hoping TikTok Shop will become a direct competitor to Amazon, Temu, and Shein.

TikTok Shop, which officially launched in the U.S. in September, saw early success over Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023, with over 5 million new U.S. customers purchasing something on the budding e-commerce platform.

However, it's likely that the 3% drop in the year-over-year growth of TikTok's monthly active users may be linked to the platform's expansion of in-app product offerings. Some users have expressed their dismay.

TikToker Grace Brassel, who has over half a million followers on the app, posted a video saying “There's links everywhere. There's a hundred ads. Why is there 17-year-old girls trying to sell me 35-cent ring lights?”

“It's providing a good opportunity for some people,”another popular TikToker, Mile Taylor, posted in September. “But I think that it can provide a good opportunity for people and TikTok can stop showing me 4 million of them.”

TikTok has not provided any further details on the feature or its possible release.