The TikTok Shop takeover is upon us, and the fashion merchandisers who act now are setting themselves up for fruitful seasons to come. Anything but traditional, and the next major catalyst to shake up the buying cycle, TikTok Shop is ushering in a new era of social commerce and quickly turning merchandisers into real-time demand planning strategists.
After months of speculation about the future of TikTok, in mid-January in the US, the platform settled under new ownership in a joint venture that was officially signed by President Trump. There’s no denying the platform is here to stay; over the Black Friday Cyber Monday period in the US, TikTok Shop generated an estimated US$570 million in sales, a 73% increase on 2024, and more than seven times the 2023 total.
This rapid year-on-year growth not only saw over 108,000 shops participate over the five-day period, but around 159,000 creators drove affiliate sales through shoppable videos and live streams.
It has only been rolled out in the US for now, but the era of TikTok Shop is here. It's going to require steering trade through strategy, planning, and smart collaboration between buyers, planners, e-commerce, marketing, and logistics teams. From content-led assortments to viral planning, here’s how merchandisers can stay one step ahead of TikTok’s ability to supersize the demand for any product.
How TikTok Shop is changing online shopping
In contrast to the often underwhelming standard grid of e-commerce stores and multi-brand sites, the short-form videos TikTok employs to keep its users hooked have successfully gamified shopping into a full-blown retail channel. Not to mention one that is much more fun and engaging for the consumer.
This signals a significant shift in how consumers are finding and acquiring fashion, and how easily TikTok can influence new kinds of purchasing behaviours.
The biggest advantage TikTok Shop has over other social commerce channels is its heavy lean into storytelling. However scripted, lo-fi or repetitive the content, the short video format allows for contextualisation and cultural meaning that enhances a product’s value tenfold. Especially for an audience that is most likely attuned to online cultural currency and driven by aesthetic purposes, TikTok plays a significant role in shifting brand awareness to shorten the consideration phase - a move that plays right into the cart of the brand.
TikTok Shop challenges for fashion brands
As with any new sales channel, teething problems are likely to arise without a proper understanding of how TikTok’s viral cycles impact merchandising and sales. Additionally, fundamental retail techniques might not make the grade. Teams must adjust their well-worn strategies across assortment, price and marketing to fit the platform’s algorithms.
As reported by Marketing Dive, cosmetics brand Tarte offers a smaller assortment on TikTok Shop because the brand “can’t control the algorithm”.
The unpredictable and often chaotic nature of TikTok’s micro-trend cycles has meant retailers have had to dial up their social media community monitoring, create new scenario models and rely on robust analytics. Pricing, payment and tariffs are a whole other hurdle, with a large number of shoppers driven by value and lower price points.
With adoption from both brands and shoppers rising at breakneck speed, fashion retailers must now compete with the stores that have already built their affiliate networks, have tested the types of content that work, and have created logistics solutions.
How merchandisers can keep up with TikTok Shop
Use TikTok as a demand planning tool
This will require a little mindset shifting around the office; don’t fall into the trap of chasing your customers around the internet. Instead, treat TikTok as a demand signal about the potential virality of styles and products.
Do increase your social listening. Merchandisers should use data to track views, saves, comments, and how long it takes for conversions to occur, as a sign of how deep to invest. User comments concerning product identification, restocking, and accessing the items through links should give a strong indication of how in-demand the product is.
Shorten the buying cycle
Remember, this is TikTok, the inventor of the micro-trend. Most styles will have one chance to spike in popularity, and will potentially lose momentum from there. While your seasonal drops can remain, stay flexible to TikTok scenarios that don’t necessarily fit within a traditional retail calendar.
This could look like holding portions of your open-to-buy (OTB) for pieces that go viral, holding re-orders on certain fabrics or colors until you see how it performs on Shop, and allowing for content creators to be strategic about which products they will potentially turn into sell-outs.
Create a TikTok assortment
As a highly visual, narrative-based platform, TikTok will not favour all styles equally. To build a high-performing, TikTok-ready assortment:
- Consider your styles that offer that ‘wow’ moment. Do they have a visual hook, such as color, movement or texture?
- Choose styles that don’t have poor return rates, especially due to the fit and size
- Styles that feel inclusive to a wide range of users to promote sell-through
- Consider the items with price points that align with the impulsiveness of TikTok shopping
- Plan depth and width differently for the products in alignment with their individual social strategy
Work with content creators and affiliate networks
Creators and affiliate networks make up part of your demand chain and therefore influence your supply. It is better to know what’s coming, rather than chasing your tail when the unplannable happens.
Know which creators, and what style of content best promotes and converts your products; share early samples ahead of range drops, and gather feedback on fit, sizing, color preference and how they’ll likely style the items.
Cross-team communication
Social commerce is showing no signs of slowing down, so it's best to get the whole team on board with concepts such as viral pieces and TikTok assortments.
From buying and planning, to online teams and fulfilment teams, having everyone across crucial metrics, like traffic and revenue coming from the TikTok Shop channel, will ensure there’s no surprises when it comes to restock sign-offs, high order volume and pricing strategy changes.
No more flipping between outdated spreadsheets and social metrics from 5 different platforms. Modern assortment planning software like Style Arcade creates a single source of truth where everyone sees the same data simultaneously, eliminating version control chaos and reducing planning cycles by weeks.
See how teams can demand-plan and forecast more accurately with Style Arcade.
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