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Before Pure Daily Care began selling on TikTok Shop in 2023, the skincare tool label’s marketing chief Jonathan Cohen was sceptical, thinking it was full of “junk” that looked “just like Temu.”
It was an honest reaction. The company’s hero product, an $80 skin-firming, wrinkle-reducing device called the NuDerma wand, didn’t exactly fit the platform, where most items were sold at rock-bottom prices. But with videos of TikTok users talking about its wands reaching over 10 million views, Cohen said they felt it was worth trying. The bet turned out to be a good one — by the end of 2025, TikTok Shop will be Pure Daily Care’s second biggest sales driver behind Amazon, Cohen said.
It’s a story that mirrors TikTok Shop’s own progression from primarily peddling low-cost goods to becoming a reliable sales channel for both emerging startups like Pure Daily Care and POV Beauty and established labels such as Tarte, Pacsun and Crocs. Not only that, it’s one of the only platforms that’s managed to successfully marry discovery and commerce — where users can stumble on a video of a product and immediately buy it in-app — in the West. Sales in the US grew more than 500 percent in 2024 and doubled in the first half of 2025, according to estimates from Consumer Edge, which tracks credit and debit card transactions.
“What was initially considered a marketing discovery channel has shifted … to actual core sales,” said Brieane Olson, chief executive of Pacsun. The brand’s sales on TikTok Shop account for more than 10 percent of its e-commerce business, up from at least 8 percent in 2024 — last year alone, it sold $20 million worth of denim there, including its $60 Casey jeans.
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Small merchants still account for over a third of TikTok Shop’s sales, according to the company, but brands say the seller experience for larger companies is improving. The social media giant has launched more customer acquisition and retention tools, opened up fulfilment centres in the US to handle shipping and returns and is working with outside firms to reduce counterfeits from unauthorised sellers.
TikTok Shop is “shifting this narrative from being a flea market to an actual distribution channel in the same realm of Amazon or the Sephora or the Ultas of the world,” said Ani Hadjinian, co-founder and chief executive of influencer Mikayla Nogueira Hawken’s POV Beauty, which launched on TikTok Shop in July. “That’s where the customer is.”
Driving Sales
Unlike Amazon, where customer reach is usually tied to ad spend, to be successful on TikTok Shop, brands need standout products that creators are already talking about.
Having that buy-in is part of why TikTok Shop has proved to be an effective sales platform in a tougher economic climate, where consumers are only “willing to spend if something stands out,” said Michael Gunther, Consumer Edge’s vice president and head of insights.
Launching exclusive products on TikTok Shop based on popular trends on the app is one way to grab attention. The makeup label Tarte, for instance, sells its Go With The Faux Freckle Stamp on the platform, capitalising on a technique that TikTokkers like Alix Earle made popular in their get ready with me videos.
But even the right product needs to be displayed in a compelling format, given TikTok’s reputation as a source for trusted product recommendations. That can mean a video with a popular creator explaining how to use an item or a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a product.
Livestreams have also become a popular tactic, with the number hosted tripling in the last year, according to Patrick Nommensen, head of strategic initiatives at TikTok Shop. For Point of View’s launch day on TikTok Shop, Nogueira Hawken hosted a three-hour livestream where she explained the benefits of and how to use POV’s $38 hydrating cream, $36 glow serum and $34 priming milk. Over 90 percent of POV’s sales during the broadcast came from its $97 Renew It kit that includes all three products, Hadjinian said.
Improving the Seller Experience
Though TikTok has managed to attract more established brands, as it stands, the backend needs some updates before more legacy labels can be convinced to come on board.
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Men’s shoe label Grant Stone, for instance, stopped selling on TikTok Shop after just a few months because it couldn’t offer adequate customer service — the platform didn’t have its own engine and the brand wasn’t able to integrate its own tools, according to chief executive Wyatt Gilmore. Instead, shoppers who wanted to ask about sizing and shipping had to contact the brand through direct messages or comments under its posts, making for a largely disorganised process.
“People aren’t usually shopping there for items in that $300 to $600 price point range,” Gilmore said. “For most brands, if you don’t want to upset the customers, they need to put a team around each one of those channels.”
TikTok says it’s actively partnering with brands to enhance its operations. In the last year, it’s rolled out a number of new offerings, including ACE, a program designed to help brands’ better match their assortments to TikTok trends and a feature that allows sellers to offer a discount to first-time purchasers if they sign up for a recurring subscription, meant to boost customer retention.
TikTok also routinely holds meetings with brands to mitigate any pressing concerns, one of the most common of which is counterfeits. Though TikTok’s dupe problem is so pervasive it’s difficult to be controlled, the platform is making attempts, such as banning terms like “replica” that sellers use to tout dupes, said Christina Kim, global head of marketing at brand protection firm MarqVision, which works with TikTok to fight counterfeits on its marketplace.
“That’s what they’re hearing from a lot of the brands, and they’re trying to make changes as a result,” said Cohen, who met with the TikTok team to discuss counterfeits in April. “They’re very open to feedback.”
For brands of all sizes, TikTok Shop is only as good a selling channel as the work a brand is willing to put into it. Gilmore of Grant Stone acknowledges that lack of effort is also part of why the shoemaker didn’t last on the platform.
“You have to fully embrace it and create videos. That’s why it didn’t work for us,” Gilmore said. “You have to go all in.”
Editor's Note: This article was amended on 28 August. An earlier version misstated Pacsun's sales on TikTok Shop in 2024. It sold $20 million worth of denim, not of its $60 Casey jean.
