Small Businesses Post Strong Sales Growth on TikTok Shop

TikTok Shop is making the case that its push into mainstream retail is not crowding out smaller sellers. The platform told Modern Retail that U.S. small-business sellers with under $15 million in annual revenue grew sales 66% year-over-year in 2025, with more than 215,000 now actively selling on the platform, up 25% from a year earlier. The figures were shared through a GlobalData-commissioned report. It is based on a nationally representative survey of 6,000 U.S. consumers ages 16 and older conducted in April and May.

The numbers update what TikTok Shop disclosed a year earlier, when the platform posted 70% small-seller sales growth and 171,000 active small-business sellers on the U.S. marketplace. The seller base has expanded by roughly 44,000 small businesses in the year since.

Discovery is Doing More Work Inside TikTok Shop

The data points to a pattern that has been consistent across its commerce push: users are not primarily entering the app to shop, but they are buying while they are there. The company says a large share of users use TikTok Shop to discover new products and brands.

According to the survey, 67% of consumers use TikTok Shop to discover new products and brands, ahead of Amazon at 57% and search engines at 35%. This changes how sales happen. TikTok Shop behaves more like a continuous loop where content, recommendations, and purchases sit close together instead of a structured funnel.

For example, a small beauty brand might not rely on a storefront search listing to get visibility. Instead, a creator might feature their product in a short video or livestream demonstration. That content can then circulate through the “For You” feed, where users encounter it without actively looking for it. Once interest is triggered, the purchase happens inside the same environment.

Creators Remain a Key Part of the Conversion Path

TikTok also highlights creator influence as a major factor in purchasing decisions. The company says a 70% of TikTok Shop users have bought products recommended by creators, and that creator content continues to shape what users decide to buy.

According to the data, on TikTok Shop, creators sit much closer to the point of sale. A product is often introduced, explained, and demonstrated in the same video that leads to a purchase, which reduces the gap between seeing something and deciding to buy it.

GlobalData managing director Neil Saunders told Modern Retail that TikTok Shop's stickiness comes from fusing retail with entertainment. What this points to is that shopping itself is being integrated into entertainment behaviour. In that setup, the content is not an interruption to the shopping journey. It is the shopping journey.

Countdown Bidding Expands Into New Categories

Alongside seller growth, TikTok has also been testing and expanding different shopping formats inside the app. These include livestream shopping features such as countdown bidding, where sellers can run timed product auctions during live broadcasts, and shoppable photo formats that allow purchases directly from static posts.

Patrick Nommensen, head of strategic initiatives at TikTok Shop, said countdown bidding, a feature that lets sellers auction products during livestreams using a countdown timer, has been opened up to more categories after previously being limited to collectibles and pre-owned luxury goods. The expansion moves TikTok Shop into more direct competition with live-shopping platforms like Whatnot, where auction-style livestreams account for much of the activity.

The company is also pushing shoppable photos, a format that lets users purchase products directly from image posts instead of videos, opening the marketplace to creators and brands operating outside of video-first formats.