TikTok in talks with TalkShopLive for U.S. live shopping

ByteDance-owned short video app TikTok is reportedly in partnership talks with California-based TalkShopLive for the launch of its live shopping service in North America, sources familiar with the matter told Financial Times.

The yet-to-be-finalized partnership will enable TikTok to outsource the operations of its live shopping offerings, which will allow TikTok creators to promote and sell their products during livestreams.

While TalkShopLive, which also provides services to Walmart and Microsoft, cuts a 10% fee and $0.30 for each transaction, TikTok is expected to pay these expenses during the initial phase.

“When it comes to market expansion for TikTok Shop we are always guided by demand and are constantly exploring new and different options for how we can best serve our community, creators and merchants in markets around the world,” the company said. “These efforts include exploring partnerships which further support a seamless eCommerce experience for merchants, which is an important part of our ecosystem.”

However, it didn’t disclose any specific details about the partnership with TalkShopLive.

To start offering in-app shopping features on its popular platform, the company teamed up with e-commerce giant Shopify in August last year. Since then, the service has been expanded with new features, ads, tools and partnerships. The company also launched a standalone app for retailers to manage their TikTok Shops.  

In fact, TikTok’s Chinese version Douyin already offers the live shopping service in the country, which helped the company see a 320% growth in sales for the year ended this April. The service is also currently being tested in the United Kingdom and several countries in Asia such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. 

Also Read: TikTok introduces Video Shopping, Catalog Listing and Live Shopping Ads

Per a previous FT report released in July, TikTok cancelled its plans to launch the service in other countries, including the United States and Germany, since its testing in the UK failed to yield the results it had hoped for while those in Asian markets were progressing as planned.

Meanwhile, Meta (formerly Facebook) started testing the ability to host Live Shopping events on its platform back in 2018, but the company announced earlier this year that it would shut down the service on October 1st, to shift its focus to Reels. However, it’s now testing its Twitch-like livestreaming platform named ‘Super’.