Despite the endless drama surrounding the app ban, President Donald Trump’s unstable tariff system, and steering shocksTikTok’s e-commerce division continues to see tremendous growth.
TikTok doesn’t disclose aggregate sales data, but the app shows the prices and sales volumes of individual products. Based on this data, analytics firm EchoTik estimates that from July to September this year, TikTok Shop sold $19 billion worth of products worldwide. The United States, the largest market, achieved sales of $4 billion to $4.5 billion, an augment of approximately 125 percent compared to the second quarter of 2025.
To put these numbers into perspective, consider that TikTok Shop currently operates on the same scale as eBay, which reported total sales of $20.1 billion in its most recent quarter. The TikTok store only launched in the US in September 2023, while eBay has been in business for over 30 years. This rate of growth is extraordinary.
“From the point of view of the TikTok ban, we focused mainly on TikTok and almost forgot that TikTok Shop’s share in US e-commerce is just slowly growing,” says Juozas Kaziukėnas, an independent e-commerce analyst.
What you see is what you get
The TikTok store broke into the extremely saturated e-commerce landscape in the US, following the age-old cliché: show, don’t tell. Creators post brief videos on TikTok trying on clothes or using home gadgets and include links to purchase products on the same platform. This provides a much simpler experience for consumers who can see real people testing products rather than viewing written reviews on customary e-commerce sites.
Ivy Yang, founder of Wavelet Strategy, a strategic public relations consulting firm, says she recently purchased a dust mite-removing vacuum cleaner on Amazon shortly before watching a TikTok Shop video of a similar product. She quickly realized that the TikTok Shop version had more features, so she ordered it, tried it, and returned the one from Amazon. For her, that’s the appeal of shopping on TikTok. “I need to see how it works in action,” Yang explains.
In theory, this is what makes live-streamed shopping even more popular, at least in China, because now influencers can advertise products on camera in real time and don’t require a lot of editing that could mask potential product flaws. In recent years, livestreamed shopping has completely changed the way people buy things in China and has become one of ByteDance’s main revenue pillars. However, no matter how difficult TikTok tried, it simply couldn’t replicate that success in the US. Kaziukėnas says TikTok Shop’s performance likely continues to fall brief of ByteDance’s expectations, especially when it comes to livestreamed shopping.