EchoTik｜TikTok Shop US Third Quarter Development Trend Report

The United States is one of TikTok's most important markets. In both 2021 and 2022, TikTok will be the most downloaded application in the United States. According to TikTok official news, as of March 2023, monthly active users in the United States have reached 150 million, which is close to half of the U.S. population.

Starting from November last year, TikTokShop opened some registration quotas in the United States, and officially closed the "semi-closed loop" business in August 2023 (that is, merchants hang external links on TikTok and guide them to independent sites for transactions), becoming a closed-loop e-commerce business. Lay the groundwork for a smooth rollout.

On September 12, 2023, U.S. time, TikTok’s official website announced that the e-commerce service TikTokShop (hereinafter referred to as TikTok e-commerce) was officially launched in the United States, marking that TikTok e-commerce has finally opened up the largest user market. On October 9, TikTokShop’s cross-border merchant self-operation model officially opened the U.S. market, allowing domestic entities and U.S. entities of Chinese legal entities to enter. This means that following the launch of "local store" (self-operated model of local merchants) and "full hosting", TikTokShop will further open the door to the US site and introduce a wider merchant group.

Before the release of TikTokShop's US site, TikTok's third-party data intelligent analysis platform EchoTik began to collect data from TikTokShop's US site. Starting in June 2023, it will cooperate with Ebrun Power to publish monthly data analysis lists. During this period, we saw the strong growth trend of the TikTok US market and wrote this "TikTokShop US Station Quarterly Development Trend Report", through in-depth mining and interpretation of the data of TikTokShop US station from July to September 2023. , to help users gain a deeper understanding of the market growth and popular categories of the US site, thereby clarifying product selection directions and operation methods.

Core findings

01TikTokShop’s US market is developing rapidly, with monthly GMV exceeding US$100 million.

TikTokShop’s U.S. Q3 sales grew rapidly. Estimated sales in July exceeded US$27 million. August was the month with the fastest sales growth, an increase of nearly 250% compared with July, with sales reaching US$68 million. Sales in September increased by approximately 47% compared with August. The total amount in a single month has exceeded 100 million US dollars, marking that the development of TikTokShop's US station has entered a critical stage.

02The total number of small stores reaches 18,000, and the entry requirements for Chinese cross-border sellers are still high.

Although the qualifications of TikTokShop in the United States have not yet been fully opened, and Chinese sellers still need high operating thresholds to comply with the regulations, the overall growth is showing a rapid upward trend in terms of the number of small stores. As of the end of September, the number of small stores exceeded 18,000. August nearly doubled compared with July, and September increased 70% compared with August. According to the TikTokShop official platform, the United States strengthened risk control in October, and stores that entered non-compliant channels or operated in violation of regulations were banned. But with the presence of local stores and cross-border sellers, this number will grow further.

0311 Major category’s 3-month GMV exceeded US$5 million

A total of 11 categories have a three-month GMV of more than 5 million US dollars, and 5 categories have a total sales volume of more than 10 million US dollars in Q3. The sales rankings of the top five categories are: care and beauty, women's clothing, mobile phones and electronic products, collections and kitchen appliances. Among them, the top three were all among the top 4 popular categories from July to September.

04Beauty and personal care segment leads the way, followed by women’s clothing

Beauty and personal care is TikTokShop’s most popular category, exceeding US$60 million. The estimated GMV in three months has reached a range of 62.5-63 million, which is approximately 1.7 times that of the second-place women’s clothing. The estimated GMV in three months is in the range of 62.5 to 63 million, which is approximately 1.7 times that of the second women’s clothing. The total GMV of women's clothing in three months reached more than 35 million US dollars, which was more than twice that of the third place.

05 The head effect of hot-selling stores is obvious, which is beneficial to local small and medium-sized DTC brands.

The top ten small stores all have sales of more than 2 million US dollars in three months, and 6 of them have sales of more than 5 million US dollars. Most of them are collection stores of small and medium-sized DTC brands or white label products. The Beachwaver, the only small store that has exceeded 10 million US dollars, is a DTC brand store selling curling irons. Local DTC small and medium-sized brands with e-commerce experience and overseas social media operation experience have ushered in new growth opportunities on TikTok.

06 Hot-selling products focus on cost-effectiveness, and hot-selling products are crucial to improving GMV.

Judging from the ordering of products, light and small, medium and low-priced products priced between US$30-50 are selling well in TikTokShop in the United States. The surge in sales in small stores and categories is mostly driven by hot-selling products. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important for sellers to master the methods of selecting and creating hot products.

07Short video delivery and connection with experts are the mainstream methods

Judging from the ordering methods of many different categories of hot products, short video delivery is currently the mainstream method in the United States. It is mainly completed through the independent creation of short videos by merchants and the establishment of connections with a large number of experts. Some brand stores have also begun to try live streaming of goods in stores.