Marketplace Briefing: U.S. brands eye global expansion on TikTok Shop amid nationwide ban
This is the latest installment of the Marketplace Briefing, a weekly Modern Retail+ column about the ever-changing e-commerce marketplace landscape. More from the series →
As TikTok barrels closer to a U.S. ban, American brands aren’t waiting around to find out how it ends. Instead, they’re taking their businesses abroad.
Brands and agencies including Wyze and Outlandish told Modern Retail in January that they were plotting international expansions on TikTok Shop into Mexico, where the social media app officially launched last month. TikTok Shop also launched in Spain and Ireland at the end of last year, and earlier this week, the company announced its e-commerce platform was now open to France, Germany and Italy, as well.
TikTok faces a looming April 5 deadline to be sold or banned in the U.S., under a divestment law upheld by the Supreme Court and signed last year by President Biden. President Donald Trump, who granted a 75-day extension from the original Jan. 19 deadline, has indicated he may extend it again. As the clock ticks, U.S. brands are testing alternative platforms like Flip and Whatnot, Modern Retail previously reported. Brands are also turning to international TikTok Shop markets as part of their strategy.
For U.S. brands, expanding internationally on TikTok Shop provides both a hedge against regulatory uncertainty and a foothold in some of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce markets. With the divest-or-ban deadline approaching once again, brands and agencies are moving quickly to establish a presence in TikTok Shop markets abroad. And for some, the bet is showing early signs of success.
Mexico gains ground
Outlandish, a social commerce firm headquartered in Los Angeles, is seeing robust demand from U.S. brands wanting to expand to Mexico. William August, Outlandish’s founder and CEO, said that the agency currently has five U.S.-based brands live on TikTok Shop Mexico and is in talks with about 20 more.
Outlandish is also seeing early success with influencers and brands local to Mexico on TikTok Shop. About a week ago, Outlandish helped launch a livestream with the Mexican beauty influencer Anna Sarelly, who is also the founder of her own beauty brand, Sarrelly Sarelly. The livestream was a hit, becoming the biggest-selling stream so far for TikTok Shop Mexico. The Sarelly Sarelly brand is also now the top beauty seller on TikTok Shop in Mexico.
“Sarelly Sarelly sold 250,000 pesos, which is around $16,000, on her very first livestream,” August said. “Even by U.S. standards, that’s pretty good. In Mexico, it’s huge.”
The way August sees it, live shopping in Mexico is moving at a faster pace than it did stateside. “In the U.S., it maybe took six months to get to a stream that sold that much. In Mexico, it took under two months,” he said.
Others, however, are seeing a slower start in Mexico, such as Wyze, a top-grossing electronics brand on TikTok Shop in the U.S. that also recently launched there.
“We don’t have that brand name recognition yet,” said Jimmy Hadden, Wyze’s head of social commerce. “TikTok Shop in Mexico seems to be very focused on extremely lower-priced products, like under $15 or $20 products.”
But Hadden said he’s optimistic sales will pick up over time, as the brand’s products have done well among Spanish-speaking consumers in the U.S. For now, the brand is selling nine SKUs in Mexico, about 20% of its overall product catalog.
Outlandish is planning launches in Europe, including Spain, Germany, France and Italy, though August said growth in those markets may be slower due to more conservative business culture. “In Mexico, it’s more of an emerging market,” he said. “Everyone’s hungry.”
Early-mover advantage
For brands like KimChi Chic Beauty, its expansion to Mexico is both a strategic move and a natural evolution.
“We’ve been diversifying,” Stacey Tank, the CEO of Bespoke Beauty Brands, which owns KimChi, said of their expansion into TikTok Shop Mexico. “Regardless of a ban or not, if you’re too heavily penetrated [in one market], you’re always going to need to diversify.”
KimChi said it’s seeing initial positive engagement and early signs of consumer interest. “It looks similar to the beginning of TikTok Shop in the U.S.,” Tank said. “The qualitative feedback that we’re receiving is very positive.”
Currently, the brand is focused on testing and preparation, such as ensuring technology works correctly, getting good customer ratings and preparing for larger launch events in the coming weeks, Tank said. The brand is offering similar price points to the U.S. market, with about 15% of KimChi’s product catalog currently available in Mexico. Tank said the brand currently offers its top-selling items.
Obvi, a collagen supplement brand, is also planning launches in TikTok Shop’s international markets, including Mexico and several European countries. The company is building out a roster of creators in each region and expects to launch this summer once logistics and fulfillment are in place, according to Ashvin Melwani, Obvi’s CMO.
Mexico is of particular interest to Obvi because the brand already works with a large number of Spanish-speaking creators and has a growing wholesale presence in the country. International DTC markets account for around 40% of Obvi’s revenue, with Mexico among the top contributors.
“Expanding into Mexico is such an underrated low-lift test that people can do,” Melwani said. “And it also creates a halo effect for our retailers in these specific countries.”
Social commerce boom
Outlandish’s August sees parallels to Southeast Asia, where TikTok Shop — and live shopping, in general — first took off. “In Mexico, things that may be easy to purchase in the U.S. might not be as easy,” he said. “So TikTok is going to offer a platform to buy products that aren’t available anywhere else. And people really want to buy through content.”
Indeed, Business Insider previously reported that TikTok’s expansion into Mexico could spark a social shopping boom in the country. Latin America’s e-commerce spending was expected to approach $180 billion in 2024, with Mexico driving much of that growth as the world’s fifth-fastest growing market, according to a September forecast from eMarketer.
Agencies are betting on that. Orca, which works with brands like Estée Lauder and KimChi Chic Beauty, recently launched a dedicated office in Mexico City, the company’s CEO and founder Max Benator told Modern Retail in an interview. Orca is also hiring and training local talent who are Spanish speakers to host livestreams.
Brands press on
Although Mexico shows promise as a growth channel, Bespoke’s Tank said a U.S. TikTok ban would be an enormous loss. TikTok Shop has turbocharged KimChi’s sales in the U.S., with the size of the brand’s business quadrupling from 2022 to 2025, Tank said. The e-commerce platform has also allowed the brand to work with over 10,000 creators a month and grow its Dallas-based fulfillment center from packing 5,000 boxes per month to over 100,000.
In the meantime, U.S. brands that have succeeded on TikTok Shop are laser-focused on winning over shoppers through social commerce abroad.
“All these markets want the American goodies,” Obvi’s Melwani said. “And if you can get in before everybody else, that’s key.”
Amazon extends Prime Day, but shoppers are losing interest in e-commerce
Amazon is stretching Prime Day into a four-day affair this summer to give customers “even more time to shop and discover millions of deals,” Modern Retail reported last week. But Amazon’s quest to drive more sales with an extended Prime Day comes at a challenging time, as consumers express waning enthusiasm for online shopping.
A global survey by Criteo released on Thursday reveals a growing emotional disconnect between consumers and e-commerce. While Prime Day continues to smash records, many shoppers say the thrill is gone. According to Criteo, 76% of consumers believe online shopping lacks excitement, and 29% go so far as to describe it as a chore.
The findings point to a paradox in the retail world: Even as brands engineer ever-bigger promotional events, the core experience of shopping online has become predictable, mechanical and even alienating. Consumers still appreciate the convenience and efficiency — 61% cite that as a top reason for shopping online — but increasingly, they’re looking for a more engaging and personalized experience.
“Shopping has become a more solitary, screen-driven experience,” the Criteo report says. “Algorithmic search efficiency has incisively streamlined our online shopping habits, leaving us with an effective but sometimes emotionless customer experience.” In other words, shopping has never been faster or more optimized, but it’s rarely delightful. This erosion of joy may explain why only 18% of consumers say they celebrate milestones like birthdays with online purchases, opting instead for more tactile experiences like in-store shopping or dining out.
For Amazon, extending Prime Day may help drive sales amid intensifying competition. Rivals like Walmart, Target and newer players such as Temu have launched overlapping summer sales, turning July into a nonstop promotional frenzy. By expanding its window to four days, Amazon not only gives sellers more time to stand out but also tries to reclaim its dominance in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Still, longer sales events don’t necessarily translate into better experiences. Criteo’s research shows that consumers want discovery, not just discounts. Nearly half say they feel most satisfied when they find something unexpected, yet only 13% say their last impulse purchase happened online. The “spark of discovery” that once defined browsing has faded in a sea of sameness and targeted ads.
What I’m reading
- Amazon has submitted a bid to acquire TikTok from its Chinese owner as the app faces an April 5 deadline to be sold or banned in the U.S., according to The New York Times.
- QVC is hosting the first 24/7 live shopping stream on TikTok in the U.S. as part of a major push to reinvent itself for the social media era and recover from years of declining TV viewership, per CNBC.
- Despite major sales milestones, TikTok Shop’s U.S. team is under intense internal pressure after failing to meet its parent company’s aggressive sales expectations, Business Insider reported.