• by Colin Kirkland , 3 hours ago

Since amassing $100 million in Black Friday sales in the U.S. last year, TikTok Shop has grown in size, increasing holiday sales while attracting name-brand sellers.

TikTok made $ 19 billion in global sales last quarter, making it almost the same size as legacy e-commerce platform eBay, which brought in $20.1 billion in Q3.

According to analytics firm EchoTik’s estimates, U.S. sales comprised upwards of $4.5 billion of TikTok Shop’s quarterly global sales -- a 125% increase compared to the previous quarter.

Ahead of this year’s holiday season, TikTok introduced strategic updates for Shop vendors and advertisers, including fully automated campaign creation and selling options, an expanded suite of Smart+ generative creative tools, and “Bulletin Board,” a public broadcasting tool for creators and brands.

The company also offered sellers and brands incentives to earn bonuses based on specific sales and targeting goals over the holiday season -- whether that would be providing creator services, improving their vendor ranking, or hitting certain sales numbers. 

As a result, the ByteDance-owned business brought in $500 million in U.S. sales between this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The extended holiday promotion shopping window – running from November 12 to December 1 -- featured deals and exclusive products from leading brands, such as Gap, Meta, Ralph Lauren, Samsung, JBL, and the Disney Store.

Total U.S. e-commerce spend between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday amounted to over $44 billion, according to a direct online commerce transactions analysis by Adobe, which also noted that social media-driven Cyber Monday purchases increased 56% year-over-year.

Although the majority of its original merchandise is being sold cheaply by small emerging brands, TikTok Shop is now selling more expensive and exclusive items from luxury brands, including $11,000 handbags from Hermes and Chanel as well as rare offerings from Louis Vuitton, Nike, Rolex, Cartier and more, according to a report by Bloomberg. 

To help it compete with leading e-commerce retailers like Amazon, TikTok Shop is attempting to make its platform more reliable, striking down 1.4 million vendor applications and over 70 million product listings before they became live, according to the company’s most recent safety report.