Users of the TikTok short video sharing service will soon be able to buy goods directly through the application thanks to the company’s cooperation with the Canadian Shopify.
Shopify, which specializes in e-commerce, said business owners will be able to add a shopping feature to their TikTok profiles that will be directly linked to their online stores.
The shopping tool, which is currently being tested, is available from retailers in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. In the coming months, access to it will be open in several more regions. Shopify has already entered into an agreement with TikTok, under which sellers can create video ads with the ability to proceed to purchase.
The owner of TikTok, a Beijing-based ByteDance company, already operates a trading platform on the Douyin platform, a short video sharing application for the Chinese market. Buying goods through social networks is not yet so common in the US, but a similar feature is already used by the social network Instagram, owned by Pinterest and Facebook Inc.
The introduction of TikTok e-commerce tools in partnership with Shopify will increase competition between it and Facebook. Last year, Facebook introduced in a number of countries tools for promoting goods and services on Instagram, as well as a digital sales channel on the social network Facebook.