TikTok Shop is on track to do $23.4B in the US this year. Your website is not the storefront anymore.
TikTok Shop did $9B in US GMV in 2024 and $15.1B in 2025 — up 68% in a year, per Momentum Works.
eMarketer, working off a slightly different base, forecasts $23.41B for 2026.
Different houses, different methodologies, same direction: this is a channel becoming a category.
US social commerce is set to pass $100B this year, up 18% year over year. Around 108 million Americans bought something on social in 2025. That's roughly a third of the country.
I'll say the thing nobody selling social commerce tools says: I could not find a defensible source for the per-platform conversion rates everyone quotes. TikTok Shop 4.7%, Instagram 2.1%, and so on. Every trail ends in an SEO blog citing another SEO blog. Treat those numbers as vibes.
The case FOR going all in:
Discovery and checkout in the same swipe removes the leakiest step in your funnel
Livestream commerce hit $14.64B in the US last year, up nearly 50%. Whatnot did $8B in live sales globally and more than doubled
You get creator distribution and performance data in one system instead of stitching them together after the fact
The case AGAINST:
You don't own the customer. You own an order. Very different assets when the platform changes its terms
Margins get squeezed between platform fees, creator commission, and the discounting the format quietly demands
Category fit is real. Beauty, apparel, snacks, collectibles — yes. Considered B2B purchases and $8,000 sofas — much harder
Fulfilment breaks people. Going viral with 40,000 orders and a three-person ops team is a genuinely bad week
Where I land: treat social commerce as an acquisition channel with a hard job — get them in, then earn the second purchase somewhere you control.
Brands treating TikTok Shop as their whole business are renting a house they can't get a lease on. Brands ignoring it are ignoring where a third of the country now shops. The uncomfortable middle is the right answer, which is why so few take it.
Retail folks — what's your actual repeat rate on a social commerce customer versus a direct one? That number decides the strategy and almost nobody publishes it.
Notes on the data
Note they don't agree on the 2025 base — Momentum Works says $15.1B, eMarketer says $15.82B. That's why I didn't draw one clean trend line, and why you should be suspicious of anyone who does.
Pick a house and stay in it.