Thoughts About the Shopify & TikTok partnership
I saw a lot of noise made of the Shopify / TikTok partnership.
It's fine, but I'm just not seeing it as game-changing at this stage. Not because it doesn't make merchants lives a little bit easier, because it does.
The headline says that Shopify bring eCommerce to TikTok, but I see the opposite. Tiktok brings Commerce to Shopify.
Yes, Shopify needs to demystify driving traffic to their store for merchants, and this does that.
The consumer experience still requires clicking off of the social network and into a Shopify Store. It's not a shoppable video ad, at least not really. It's still a link-off experience. Personally, I wouldn't call this liveshopping.
You know what would have made me more excited about this?
Shop Pay integrated into a native TikTok eCommerce "tap-to-pay" experience. It's well known that PayPal is the default provider for Facebook Commerce. Shop Pay signing with TikTok would cement for me the fact that they are going after PayPal.
Hendrik Laubscher added his thoughts on the matter: “Shopify offering TIkTok advertising to its rebels is step one. It’s not live-streaming commerce but opens the path towards deeper usage of TikTok KOLs by medium sized businesses. From an investment point of view, first it’s UGC then marketing and then live-streaming. Have seen this playout in multiple markets.. everyone is chasing Taobao Live-streaming commerce in terms of scale and GMV.”
Jason Greenwood adds some analysis: “I expect that to come as part of the new wave of announcements that they have signaled...I agree, in app purchasing is essential to close the loop. But I think TikTok will go with Stripe (directly) or similar not Shop Pay. And Shopify is also partnering with YouTube so expect to see in app purchases coming to that platform too. FB is too slow rolling out in app purchasing globally (eg still not available in Insta in NZ) across its apps so hopefully this will put a fire under them all... All these western platforms suck for the in app commerce experience right now...”
Ricardo Belmar also had some great insights: “Suppose you compare where Shopify merchants are today with where they could be tomorrow via the TikTok channel (and if what they're selling appeals to TikTok demographics), then there is definitely exciting potential here. True, it's not live stream video selling, but I don't see that as the point here. Many of these merchants are not ready for live stream selling but can absolutely get their feet wet in social commerce. Sure, they already have Facebook with Instagram, but this opens yet another door via Shopify's platform. For me, that's what makes this announcement a "big deal." Fast forward a bit, and if Walmart gets a piece of TikTok, and as a Shopify merchant, you get accepted into Walmart's marketplace, then you add another dimension to this equation that's very interesting. That would also set it apart from Facebook or Instagram.”
