This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 26, 2022 - January 1, 2023

TikTok’s omnipresence even across other social media platforms has seen influencers go from using the platform for content creation to marketing their products and now selling them too. Its easy-to-scroll interface and addictive nature attract users to spend copious amounts of time watching short-form videos.

Even social commerce powerhouse Facebook is falling behind TikTok. Influen­cers and beauty gurus prefer the latter because it offers several distinctive features and solutions without hoarding multiple interfaces in one app.

CB Insights reported that TikTok has been downloaded nearly four billion times since 2018. This reinforces the social media titan’s position as the most downloaded social media app in 2022. However, its presence is not just limited to content sharing. With the launch of TikTok Shop in April, the platform has altered the e-commerce scene in the last half of 2022.

According to Cube Asia’s “Social Com­merce in Southeast Asia 2022” report, the four meaningful ways in which social experiences can be integrated into e-commerce are social platform commerce, conversational commerce, live shopping and community group buying. It classifies social platform commerce as e-commerce where critical parts of the purchase journey — such as product selection, payment and order confirmation — happen inside the social platform (as is the case with TikTok).

While social commerce as a whole is expected to contribute US$42 billion (RM186 billion) to the region’s e-commerce market by end-2022, Cube Asia says social platform commerce alone will account for US$34 billion.

When young entrepreneurs Ivor Lim Xian Z — who is famously known for “trying food, so you don’t have to” on TikTok — and Chew Hoi Meng were building their personal care brand, HYGR.my, up from scratch, they tried a myriad of e-commerce platforms to boost their sales but to no avail.

“We started HYGR during the Covid-19 pandemic because Ivor and I couldn’t find a job. In the beginning, we thought e-commerce meant that we just needed to put our products on Shopee, Mudah.com and Carousel, but the sales were low. So we decided to explore other options online and see what other e-commerce sites we could utilise,” says Chew.

He learnt more about marketing, branding and content creation from Belarusian-American entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary Vee, after which he and Lim decided to leverage TikTok and create videos during the pandemic.

“One of our videos went viral [at the time] and I think we had two million views on that video. We posted it at 9pm and three hours later, our phones kept buzzing. A lot of sales were coming in through Shopee and our products were sold out in three hours,” says Chew, adding that the power of virality allowed HYGR to flourish.

ByteDance, the technology company that owns TikTok, has positioned TikTok Shop as the next mammoth platform for online shopping. On its website earlier this year, the company extended its plans to support local businesses and provide an avenue to bring together online sellers, buyers and creators. This is expected to benefit small and medium enterprises, especially those that have yet to set up bricks-and-mortar stores due to the high capital investment involved.

Owing to TikTok’s popularity, the performance of other e-commerce platforms has paled in comparison, observes Hans-Peter Ressel, CEO of Momentum Commerce, an end-to-end solutions provider of brand management on marketplace models. It is also an official TikTok seller partner, tasked with driving brand engagement, customer loyalty and online shopping.

Ressel tells Digital Edge that influencer marketing has impacted brand sales. Social commerce platforms have become an important channel for the beauty industry to thrive, with beauty advisers making live content and reviewing products in 90-second videos.

“Key opinion leaders jump on certain trends and try out a lot of things. You need a person with the stamina to go through all those iterations until something works out. No one knows what will work correctly. Clients who hire us are curious people who are willing to explore new trends, allowing influencers to be creative,” says Ressel. The e-commerce agency works with renowned beauty brands such as Wardah and Cosnova Beauty, the parent company of cosmetic brands Catrice and Essence.

When the TikTok Shop was launched in Malaysia, Momentum Commerce decided to jump on the bandwagon as it believes the platform offers a real shoppertainment experience. “I felt that since TikTok now provides a way for brands to engage directly with customers and we at Momentum Commerce are dealing with brands, why not look into this channel and experience shoppertainment?” says Ressel.

“The Lazada and Shopee experience is more of a shopping platform that is trying to implement certain social commerce and shoppertainment elements. But in the end, it’s still a shopping platform. You’d typically go to these platforms to buy a certain brand or product, but with TikTok, you would go there every day to consume content, so we developed a strategy to combine these two worlds.”

Although social commerce platforms are fast taking over the scene, shopping platforms are still relevant, says influencer and co-founder of Owlet Beauty, Ceddy Ang, who is more commonly known for his brutally honest food reviews on TikTok (@ceddyornot).

Southeast Asia’s online economy is on track to reach US$1 trillion by 2030 as online shopping becomes the norm, according to a report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Co. Shopee is still ahead of the game with at least 60% of e-commerce traffic in the region, while Lazada has 30%.

Although Ang began his influencer career on TikTok and has garnered more than 300,000 followers, he believes Shopee is a much more comfortable platform to work with given its presence in the e-commerce scene. Furthermore, he says his popularity on TikTok is not guaranteed to last forever.

“At some point, you’re going to reach a plateau. You cannot be at the top forever. I might have a viral video [today] but there will always be new talents coming up. So, I thought of a way to employ my follower base and I came up with my business, Owlet Beauty,” says Ang.

“I chose Shopee and not TikTok because Shopee approached me first. I’ve been working with the platform for a while. It came up with a business plan that we could work with, although it knew perfectly well that I am a TikToker. And since it approached me first, I thought, ‘Why not?’”

Despite being a long-time TikTok influencer, he says the platform has neither acknowledged his contributions nor verified his account. When he tried promoting his business on the app, he alleges that TikTok removed content that mentions other platforms.

Owlet Beauty is bound to Shopee for a year and the benefits are endless, says Ang. After many trials and tribulations, he successfully sold out his product less than a week after its launch on the platform.

“Before my live streams, Shopee prepares discount vouchers and points for us to give our viewers. We have also received the Shopee Mall status, to show that our shop is authentic. If you are a Shopee buyer, chances are you would trust a Shopee Mall or preferred seller, compared to those that don’t have the status,” he adds.

Unlike TikTok, which takes a 1% service fee from its merchants, Shopee only leverages his popularity, says Ang. He is also a part of the Shopee Celebrity Squad, in which customers can access celebrity- and influencer-owned products while having the chance to interact with the said celebrities during live streams.

Ultimately, social commerce platforms and shopping platforms differ in terms of approach. For TikTok, the reliance on algorithms is higher. Promotional videos and sponsored content may not go viral or even appear on the “For You” page since users will not willingly search for them on TikTok.

“If it appears, it appears,” laments Ang. “But it’s not the same for Shopee. Sellers can say whatever to promote their products within the community guidelines and garner sales.”

As more shopping platforms emerge, there will be more players wanting to grab a slice of the market. Douyin and Lemon8 are a few examples that are making their mark on the scene, says HYGR’s Chew. Douyin is the Chinese version of TikTok catering specifically for users in China while Lemon8 (pronounced as lemonade) is a mobile app featuring community, social and lifestyle recommendations.

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