The era of social e-commerce is coming: TikTok may become the biggest winner

Prime Day is the best example of social e-commerce in the United States . On TikTok, videos with the hashtag #primed a y202 2 have been viewed 52 million times . Consumers are now more inclined to look for the best deals on social media channels rather than e-commerce platforms such as Amazon .

On TikTok, videos with #Primedy2022 and related tags have 52 million views . That number was 30 million last year and only 6 million the year before . In 2019, videos with related tags had almost zero views . TikTok is not only popular in the United States , its users are also starting to watch more shopping-related content.

Shoppers are turning to social platforms like TikTok because Amazon has given up on personalizing Prime Day . The sale featured an overwhelming list of deals (millions of them in two days), and it was up to shoppers to find what they liked. In the past, media publications would try to identify the best deals (and hope to earn a commission ). Now , shoppers have turned to social networks.

During the sale , many shoppers empathized: “I had no idea what to buy for Prime Day , so I opened TikTok .” “ So true! Where do I search first when I ’m looking for the best Prime Day deals ? TikTok . ” Most of the information about Prime Day is on TikTok, not Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter , because its content model is best suited to display this information .

TikTok is probably the best platform at quickly personalizing content for each user — TikTok pushes relevant videos based on the user ’s recent interactions with other Prime Day-tagged videos . In contrast, Amazon’s own live videos during Prime Day lacked engaging content. Consumers were not interested and went to TikTok .

Amazon and TikTok are not working together , and videos on TikTok do not have product links that consumers can directly shop . Most videos are users sharing discounted products they found , and potential consumers need to manually go to Amazon to find the same products. However, TikTok's ambitions are much bigger. According to Bloomberg's Zheping Huang , TikTok plans to increase its total e-commerce transaction volume to $2 billion this year and $23 billion in 2023.

Social commerce in the West is about advertising on social media platforms - brands buy ads to appear in social media feeds . However, Prime Day showcases social commerce in its purest form - users share product information with other users.

Social e-commerce

Prime Day