TikTok expects to be Amazon, plans to build US fulfillment centers, and poaches staff by TikTok Shop

At the point when Jeff Bezos began Amazon, his motto was “get big fast,” and obviously, ByteDance is applying a similar ethos to set its transiently popular social media platform, TikTok, hot on Amazon’s heels. In the past few weeks, TikTok has posted a series of job listings that, as Axios detailed, mark TikTok’s initial significant move into US e-commerce—unpredictably — erratically, by building Amazon-like fulfillment centers.

Job listings for “Fulfillment By TikTok Shop” try to staff key roles like logistics solutions managers or operations research engineers to help TikTok in building “international warehousing, customs clearings, and supply chain systems that support domestic e-commerce efforts in the US and cross-border e-commerce efforts,” Axios revealed.

It seems as though TikTok is building a US-based workforce capable of warehousing, delivering, and processing returns.

Ars reviewed the job listings that Axios found, affirming that TikTok is looking for staff in significant US cities where it now has offices, such as Los Angeles and Seattle. Earlier this year, TikTok’s expansion into Seattle poached workers from Amazon, as well as from Meta, which has had its own prosperity wandering into e-commerce through Facebook and Instagram. (Meta didn’t promptly furnish Ars with the comment on its e-commerce operations.)

“Over 170 people work for TikTok or ByteDance in the Seattle area, according to LinkedIn profiles,” the reporter reported. “Of those, over half came from Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook’s parent company, Meta.”

TikTok as of now works TikTok Shop outside the US, and within the US, TikTok already has a shopping feature underway worked with by Shopify. Presently it seems TikTok has greater plans as a top priority to possibly move beyond modest aspirations of working with sales for influencers and really become an online retail giant.

By establishing its own US-based fulfillment centers, reports recommend that TikTok could detonate an entirely different revenue stream and become a preferred online shopping destination for its broad, young audience. In any case, TikTok’s not prepared to discuss any of that yet.

A TikTok representative provided Ars with a similar statement it gave different outlets, demanding that ByteDance is focused on its current e-commerce operations, no US development.

“We’re focused on providing a valuable shopping experience in countries where TikTok Shop is currently offered across Southeast Asia and the UK, which includes providing merchants with a range of product features and delivery options,” a TikTok spokesperson told.

TikTok Shop going live in the US before the holidays

Despite the fact that TikTok formally says that it’s focused on its operations in places like the UK, earlier this month the UK TikTok Shop battled to take off. It may be the case that the US market is bound to embrace TikTok shopping, and TikTok plans to launch a US shopping feature in front of this holiday season.

Or on the other hand, it may be the case that social media platforms don’t make extraordinary shopping destinations anyplace. TikTok’s shopping feature would permit influencers to drop links to products during live streams — which Meta tried and failed to do with Facebook, closing down a comparative feature earlier this month. It’s as yet hazy if TikTok would succeed where Meta failed.

In spite of the fact that TikTok’s US fulfillment centers might be ByteDance’s newest idea to expand into US e-commerce, kicking things off on this project is obviously starting. In any case, Amazon’s success story demonstrates the way that rapidly an organization can construct a realm whenever it’s associated with a broad customer base online. In somewhere around four years of launching, Amazon went from for the most part selling books in the US to dominating global e-commerce.

Southeast Asia (SEA) is projected to be Tiktok Shop’s most promising region — LOCAD

TikTok’s popular #BookTok community “has been credited with driving a spike in the sales of print romance books this year,” so it’s a good idea for TikTok to follow in Amazon’s footsteps and want to move beyond selling books for different retailers. Last year, the TikTok hashtag #tiktokmademebuyit attracted 2.3 billion views, while a comparative TikTok hashtag #amazonfinds captured 6.7 million views. On the off chance that TikTok keeps up with its popularity and influence, the social platform could do the impossible and become a disruptive force, even to an e-commerce giant like Amazon.

However, not every person is persuaded that would occur. At least one wealth management expert told that he thinks the notion of TikTok moving into e-commerce is “idiotic.”

TikTok is staying quiet as it fields applications in significant US cities however recently told that its interest in e-commerce originates from clients looking for a “seamless” experience while using the app. It probably became excessively enticing for the social platform to imagine the potential revenue stream it could create assuming the billions clicking the hashtag #tiktokmademebuyit could make buys not too far off in the app — with TikTok then fulfilling the orders and in any event, processing returns.

“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,” TikTok told.