TikTok Shop Just Hit eBay-Level Scale. Here’s the Playbook Every Brand Should See.

This week TikTok’s commerce arm dropped a number that should make every founder sit up: global sales of around $19 billion between July and September 2025. In the U.S. alone it pulled in about $4 billion to $4.5 billion, a 125 % increase quarter-over-quarter.

That puts TikTok Shop on par with eBay in scale.

For brands building global, digitally native businesses the message is clear: social commerce isn’t optional anymore.

1. Discovery + Purchase = One Feed
TikTok has collapsed the funnel: you scroll, you see the product, you tap, you buy. No bounce, no redirect, no separate site visit. That means fewer people ever land on your owned storefront.

2. It’s not just hype — the figures back it up
Beyond the $19 billion number, other sources show TikTok Shop’s global GMV hit $26 billion in the first half of 2025.

3. The U.S. growth is accelerating under the radar
Despite regulatory pressure and talk of bans, TikTok’s U.S. commerce footprint continues to expand aggressively.

Here are deeper learnings most brands are missing. These are the insights that make the difference between being reactive and being strategic.

● Customer data risk is real
When a person buys through TikTok’s in-app checkout, your brand often doesn’t get full access to their email, purchase history, or lifetime value. That disrupts your retention flywheel and makes repeat business harder to track.
Takeaway: Build an exit strategy from platform-only commerce to your owned audience as quickly as possible.

● The creator economy is the new storefront
TikTok Shop’s strength isn’t just its checkout mechanism—it’s creator-led content that makes products feel real, urgent, and “seen now.” Brands have to act like media companies, not just product companies.
Takeaway: Shift focus from “ads that sell” to “stories that invite you in and convert.”

● Fulfillment + global trade are becoming major moats
If you’re selling globally (which many of your readers are or will), your margins hinge on duties, tariffs, returns and logistics. With TikTok driving volume, those back-end costs can eat profits fast.
Takeaway: Your global fulfilment, duty strategy and logistics pipeline are now as important as your creative and ads.

● Price pressure is creeping in
Surprisingly, average unit prices on TikTok Shop have dropped since launch (from roughly $21.45 in 2023 to about $19.11 by mid-2025), largely because the platform is optimizing for volume and impulse.

Takeaway: You can’t rely on high-margin products unless you control both cost and channel. Margins will be squeezed if you fall into “viral product only” mode.

● Regulation and regional variability matter
TikTok Shop is far more mature in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines) where livestream commerce dominates. The U.S. remains early stage.

Takeaway: If you’re global, don’t assume the same playbook works in every market. Local logistics, compliance, duty rules matter.

TikTok Shop isn’t just another channel. It’s a tectonic shift in how commerce works.
If you rely solely on your site, your funnel and data, you are playing yesterday’s game.
Today’s winners will be the brands that:

For brands that lean into this early and smartly the upside is huge. For brands that treat it like “another ad channel,” the risk is slipping into being a margin-exploited vendor in someone else’s ecosystem.