TikTok Tries to Woo American Shoppers, One Livestream at a Time

As TikTok’s U.S. shopping service enters its second year of operation, the ByteDance-owned company has become stingier about wooing online merchants with cash. TikTok has cut back on subsidizing deep discounts for retailers, a tactic it used last year when TikTok Shop launched, and has tripled its cut of sales to 6%.

But TikTok has started to use other strategies to keep merchants interested in TikTok Shop. It’s putting more emphasis on teaching sellers how to use live video streams to connect with American consumers. Among other things, it has been encouraging retailers to hold longer and more frequent livestreams—up to 8 or 10 hours at a time in some cases—and offering coaching and studio spaces to merchants in cities such as Los Angeles to make it easier to go live.