TikTok abandons plans to shop in the US

Although popular in Asia, TikTok abandoned plans to bring shopping to the US after a failed launch in the UK. The company also planned to expand into continental Europe, but these plans were also rejected.

What happened in Britain. Several members of the UK team working on the launch were either demoted after taking leave, sick due to stress or completely removed from client projects. The Financial Times reports:

TikTok has scrapped plans to expand its live e-commerce initiative in Europe and the US after the social media platform’s foray into QVC-style shopping in the UK was hit by internal problems and struggled to gain traction with consumers […]

But expansion plans were abandoned after the UK project failed to meet targets and influencers pulled out of the scheme, three of the people said.

Many live streams on the TikTok Shop have seen poor sales despite the company offering subsidies and cash incentives to encourage brands and influencers to sell through the app.

Cultural differences. TikTok and the UK have had their share of culture clashes. It was last month reported that the complaints were about “aggressive corporate ethics at odds with typical UK working practices.”

Joshua Ma, ByteDance’s senior executive who ran the TikTok Shop in Europe, was replaced as the company investigated comments by staff in London that he “didn’t believe” in maternity leave.

At least 20 members of the London-based e-commerce team – about half of its original staff – have left since TikTok Shop launched, while others say they are on the verge of quitting. Two employees were paid a settlement of working conditions […]

Members of the e-commerce team in London said they were often expected to work more than 12 hours a day, starting early to accommodate calls with China and finishing late when live streams were more successful in the evening, with “reports on feedback” to be filed immediately afterwards.

Convenient time. This news comes just a week after it was announced that the FCC in the US asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores after it was leaked that the app was accessing user data in the US. Since then, TikTok has reportedly committed to making changes. We can’t help but wonder if the decision to stop shopping in the US is at least partially related to privacy and data concerns.

Why do we care? Advertisers and e-commerce business owners who were looking forward to promoting their stores using the new shopping feature will have to change their strategy. But given the troubles that TikTok has found itself in recently, it wouldn’t be a surprise if more and more advertisers start moving away from the platform. We’re not sure what big moves TikTok’s parent company ByteDance will make in response to these developments, but we’ll be watching.