With its legal status in the US still up in the air following threats of a nationwide ban by the Trump administration, Chinese short-format video app, TikTok, has inked a new global partnership with Canadian e-commerce platform, Shopify. In a press statement announcing the deal, Shopify claimed that the partnership with TikTok will help its one million-plus merchants more easily advertise their products on the video-sharing app as it looks to grow its customer base among gen-next users.
According to Shopify, the agreement enables merchants on the platform to create, run and optimize their TikTok marketing campaigns directly from the Shopify dashboard by installing the new TikTok channel app from the Shopify App Store. As part of the plan, sellers will be able to target their audiences based on gender, age, user behavior and video category to create ‘shoppable’ video ads that drive customers to online stores.
Announcing the deal, Satish Kanwar, Vice President of Product at Shopify said: “TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing entertainment platforms with over 100 million highly engaged users in the U.S. alone. The TikTok channel means Shopify merchants—even those without a strong TikTok following of their own yet—can connect with these new audiences using content that feels authentic and genuine to the TikTok experience”.
TikTok is still available to download in the US after a court last month granted a preliminary injunction against a Trump administration order to ban it in the country. The ban would have also required Apple and Google to remove the app from their respective online stores in the US, effectively ending TikTok’s reign as one of the most popular social media apps for Gen-Z users in the country.
