TikTok is talking to brands like it’s a grocer now

It’s indicative of how, as the platform matures, TikTok Shop is working to onboard a greater variety of brands and help them grow through the platform. For example, it has added more established brands to the platform like Crocs and Pacsun. Now, it is trying to recruit more CPG brands by convincing them that TikTok Shop is a place where they can test new flavors or reach their super-fans. And, it’s become an increasingly important platform for traditional grocers to make sense of what’s trending.

Parker, who about a decade ago worked with Kroger as an executive for Murray’s Cheese, said the company is mirroring traditional merchandising tactics used by grocers. To be sure, TikTok is not a grocery business — it can’t sell products like fresh meat or produce, for example. But, the company says it can help CPG companies determine which products to sell on TikTok or which new product launches may make sense there. TikTok says it can also guide food and beverage brands on how to work with creators or whether they should buy top-of-funnel ads.

“If you think about a grocer selling an end cap in a seasonal situation, it’s not that dissimilar from dropping an LTO and putting it in front of a lot of eyeballs” on TikTok, Parker said. “It’s just that this is the digital sphere versus the in-person [sphere].”

Parker declined to share specific growth stats, but said TikTok Shop as a whole has grown 120% year-over-year, and the food and beverage category has more than doubled since early 2024. It’s one of the faster-growing categories on the platform, she said. The number of larger brands — those with at least $30 million in annual revenue — joining TikTok Shop grew 95% year-over-year in the first half of 2025, the company previously told Modern Retail.

“Fundamentally, as a discovery-commerce platform, we are trying to encourage any of these brands, sellers, content creators to take advantage of the combination of content and commerce and capture the attention of those 170 million Americans that are already on TikTok,” Parker said.

Still, there remains a big elephant in the room that may concern potential partners: It’s unclear who exactly will own TikTok moving forward and how they may choose to operate the platform. President Trump signed an executive order Sept. 25 paving the way for a deal that would transfer majority ownership of the app to American investors, according to NBC News, but it’s still unknown who exactly this includes. A company spokesperson declined to comment on its ownership.

A big opportunity for CPG

TikTok is designed to be self-service; for any brand that joins, there are tips and tutorials for how to make content or start selling on the platform. The company also hosts programs for sellers in growth mode with seminars or matchmaking. And for top brands, account managers will assist them with things like media plans or assortment strategy, according to Parker.

Parker said promotions on TikTok lead to increased awareness elsewhere that can be seen anecdotally and measured as a halo effect across other e-commerce sites, DTC and brick-and-mortar retail.

“If you’re a brand that has success on TikTok Shop, and you are leaning into all of the things that make you successful — which include content and often ad spend, and often interaction with your community — you’re necessarily going to have a substantial amount of increased awareness,” Parker said. “The impact of TikTok is really quite holistic across an omnichannel brand.”

For example, Parker said the platform has helped EZ Bombs, a family-run brand of Mexican seasoning products inspired by bath bombs — they are meant to be dropped into a pot to flavor a meal — land retail distribution in more than 1,000 doors nationally, such as in Walmart and Albertsons locations.

It’s a “really interesting example of the cycle where folks who started and leaned into the platform first are then able to get more broader and be more traditional distribution,” Parker said. Earlier this year, within one year of starting on TikTok Shop, EZ Bombs hit $19 million in sales on TikTok Shop alone, according to TikTok.

Parker also sees opportunities for much larger brands to take advantage of trends that begin organically on the platform. Last year, candy giant Mars launched Skittles POP’d, which originated from a TikTok trend where people would freeze-dry Skittles so they would pop and become crunchy. The product launched on TikTok Shop last October ahead of a larger retail launch this year.

“It’s a great place for [brands] to get really early feedback on items they want to R&D,” Parker said. “It’s a great place for them to, say, launch a new flavor like the Skittles POP’d, because maybe there’s already a trend they’re capturing.”

Additionally, Parker said the popularity of Swedish candy brand Bubs on TikTok led it to launch regular distribution in the U.S. within the past few months. That followed the popularity of trends like “candy salad” around 2023 or 2024, where people would toss different candies together in a bowl.

A non-brand-specific trend that became especially popular this year, according to Parker, is Dubai chocolate. While it’s no longer at its peak, “it’s a residual flavor profile that is still very popular now,” she said.

The company says it can also help brands navigate the emergence of livestreams in commerce. It even offers what it calls “mega livestreams,” bigger productions where in the food category people could be preparing something, making something, cooking something or sampling something, Parker said. For example, EZ Bombs last year hosted a livestream for Day of The Dead with flash sales and giveaways.

“You’re doing all of these sets and streaming and sales and content production,” Parker said, adding that the company can support brands with resources in doing so. “It’s still relatively new as a lever, but I think it’s one more way that makes us really unique.”

Is TikTok the next big retail media network?

TikTok is in an interesting corner where it may be both competing with grocers for advertising dollars or on selling products while also partnering with them on social media campaigns. Bobby Watts, svp of retail media, digital merchandising and marketing for Ahold Delhaize USA, told Modern Retail that he sees the platform as no different than Meta’s Facebook or Instagram.

“They command big dollars in the marketplace. Google does, as well,” Watts said. “These are big companies that command a lot of advertising dollars, but we see them as a needed channel. … They have a great way to engage with consumers.”

Brand executives who sat on a separate panel on retail media at the conference Monday talked about how they have noticed TikTok disrupt their marketing, e-commerce and advertising strategies.

“[TikTok] is tearing up and challenging everything we built, from a process point of view and thought point of view,” said Ajay Sharma, vp of e-commerce and omnichannel for Bayer Consumer Health, adding that the platform has challenged how the company approaches content generation, syndication and communication. “For us, it’s a key emerging channel.”

Katie Neil, head of connected commerce for The Coca-Cola Company, said TikTok has disrupted against traditional retail media networks of the likes of Amazon and Walmart.

“If you look at Asia — Southeast Asia, like Thailand and Indonesia — TikTok is actually a legit route to market. It’s so influential,” Neil said. “Discoveries become entertainment, and it’s very seamless and fluid. But as an advertiser, they’re bringing data and a massive unlock of an audience that on-site retail media networks just can’t match.”

Getting ahead of trends

In terms of data on consumer trends, TikTok has a unique perspective in that the platform can look at what content or hashtags are trending to determine what may become a shopping trend before it even takes off on TikTok Shop.

“We jumped from watermelon and mango as a hashtag in the summertime to, all of a sudden, pumpkin was there,” Parker said. “When I last checked, things like gingerbread are already starting to trend, from a content perspective, which tends to be that leading indicator for what we’re going to see be popular on the shop side just a couple weeks later.”

Parker said this lag between the content and commercialization is when brands have an opportunity, if they can move quickly — whether they be small businesses or big CPG players able to do rapid R&D.

“That’s what we saw with Dubai chocolate,” Parker said. “We saw the content trend started much earlier in Dubai, and it transferred platform-wide.” She added that the first seller of Dubai chocolate products was in Q4 of last year, with a make-it-yourself kit that was easy to quickly bring to the market.

It also made for great content, Parker said.

“You have to remember that, no matter what you do … on TikTok and TikTok Shop, it has to be visually appealing,” Parker said. “So any transformation or anything that plays into the visuals, whether it’s popping a Skittle or opening a Dubai chocolate bar with the green; that sort of ASMR or visual appeal is really, very popular.”