Marketplace Briefing: How Rhino USA is building a 182‑acre ‘content factory’ in Texas after riding TikTok Shop to 8-figure sales
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On 182 acres of Central Texas scrubland outside Austin, a Ford Bronco crawls over a dirt course taking shape. Winding trails cut through the property, where obstacles and new buildings are beginning to emerge from the brush.
For Rhino USA, the truck and towing gear brand that found an unlikely audience on TikTok Shop, the sprawling compound is being designed as a place to test products, host creators and produce the videos that drive sales online. Those videos often feature the company’s gear in action. In a recent post, for instance, Rhino USA showed how its recovery equipment could be used to free a semi-submerged truck from a pool of mud.
The project, called RhinoWorld, comes as Rhino USA has emerged as one of TikTok Shop’s more unusual success stories. While beauty and fashion dominate sales on the platform, Rhino USA has generated more than eight figures in TikTok Shop revenue selling products such as ratchet straps, winch rope and traction boards, according to the company. Now, Rhino USA is investing in a physical destination designed to generate the creator content, product demonstrations and live shopping streams it hopes will power its next phase of TikTok Shop growth.
“RhinoWorld is our content factory, and TikTok is where we want to post content,” CEO Ted Repic said in an interview.
Founded in 2015 by Repic’s sons Cameron and Dylan, Rhino USA started as an Amazon seller focused on products the family used themselves while riding dirt bikes and off-road vehicles. The company has since expanded into towing, camping, boating and overlanding gear, with more than 300 products and distribution through retailers including Walmart, Sam’s Club and AutoZone. Overall, Rhino USA generates nine figures in revenue and has quadrupled sales in the last three years. TikTok Shop has played a huge part in that.
The company joined TikTok Shop in October 2023, shortly after the platform’s U.S. debut. Sales began almost immediately as existing customers posted videos featuring the brand’s products, according to Adam Fox, Rhino’s chief marketing officer.
“We got on the platform, and within days, we were organically selling thousands of dollars of product,” Fox said. “A lot of our core customers started posting content using our products connected to our shop, and that’s how things got started.”
One product in particular helped fuel growth. Rhino’s retractable ratchet strap proved especially well-suited for short-form video because it was easy to demonstrate and easy for viewers to understand. One of Rhino USA’s most popular TikTok videos, with more than a million views, jokingly shows how a ratchet strap can be used as a pair of suspenders.
Rhino USA also regularly uses its TikTok account to demonstrate recovery efforts for a range of products. Another popular video, with nearly 4 million views, shows how the company’s kinetic recovery rope can be used to pull a stranded car from the ocean surf. As videos spread across TikTok, the company began reaching customers outside its traditional audience, including gift buyers shopping for outdoor enthusiasts.
Rhino USA’s success stands out on a platform where beauty remains dominant. Beauty and personal care accounted for roughly 19% of TikTok Shop’s U.S. sales in 2025, totaling about $2.7 billion, according to data from e-commerce analytics firm Charm.io. Womenswear ranked second at about 12.5%, or $1.8 billion.
Still, Rhino USA ranks as the top seller in TikTok Shop’s automotive and motorcycle category, according to Charm.io, with hundreds of thousands of units sold, and has consistently placed among the platform’s top 100 sellers overall.
Like most brands, creators have played a major role in Rhino USA’s growth on TikTok Shop. More than 6,000 creators generated sales for Rhino USA on TikTok Shop last year, according to the company, helping drive nearly one billion product impressions across the platform. Those creator relationships are also shaping RhinoWorld. Earlier this year, the company invited a small “all-star” group of around 10 to 15 creators to visit the property before it officially opens. Rhino regularly taps this core group of creators for product feedback, custom bundles and campaign ideas, Fox said.
The company has also leaned into less obvious creator categories to expand its reach beyond core off-road enthusiasts. One of Rhino’s closest partners is a beauty creator who uses the handle @alignedwithkay. For instance, she has posted about Rhino’s products in relation to holidays such as Father’s Day. Rhino has built a special bundle with her that has performed well with gift buyers. Another is Brandon Lush, a creator with over a million followers who hawks everything from hair products to kitchen appliances through his channel.
Repic believes the RhinoWorld property will become increasingly valuable as live shopping gains traction in the U.S. Rhino USA has already seen what short-form video can do for its business: The company’s retractable ratchet strap has gone viral multiple times on TikTok. One planned building will include 8,000 square feet dedicated to live commerce production.
So far, live shopping has been more of an experiment than a core revenue driver for Rhino USA. The company has hosted livestreams in-house and has partnered with agencies to test different formats, Fox said, but those efforts are still “incremental” compared to the company’s short-form video and affiliate strategy on TikTok Shop. Long term, the goal is to use RhinoWorld to make live selling feel more like a real recovery or towing scenario than a studio shoot. The company envisions broadcasting live demonstrations from trails and recovery courses across the property, showing viewers how to use kinetic ropes, straps and other gear in the field.
“Our products are best demonstrated out on the field,” Fox said. “Being able to be in a studio, then go right outside to demonstrate them — that’s how we think we’ll be the most successful on a platform like TikTok Shop.
Repic said the company is still in the first phase of development. Workers are building trails and moving dirt across the property while constructing 22,000 square feet of facilities, including a prototyping and testing lab, welcome center, retail store, and warehouse. Plans also call for RV sites, a campground, an outdoor shooting and archery range, and eight miles of proving grounds for testing gear.
RhinoWorld is not expected to fully open until at least 2027, and Repic said the project will likely continue evolving long after that.
“I don’t think Rhino World will ever be done,” Repic said. “A tree falls, and that’s a new obstacle. We just build around it. That’s kind of the point — it’s a playground that keeps changing.”
What I’m reading
- Amazon’s media empire quietly taps outside ad sales help. (The Information)
- Amazon’s Prime Day sale will start on June 23 and run through June 26. (Amazon)
- The feds were pushing a landmark case about Amazon’s control of its contract drivers. Then the president put Amazon’s former lawyer in charge. (Bloomberg)