With more and more sellers leveraging social platforms, Retail Week sits down with Paul Mears, TikTok group vertical director of retail and ecommerce, to discuss the myriad opportunities for retailers.
TikTok has come a long way from its origin story of users dancing and lip-syncing to chart-topping songs in short snappy videos. TikTok users can now discover, engage, and shop with a host of brands and retailers.
Launched in 2016 by Beijing-based tech company ByteDance, the online social media platform saw a boom in downloads during the pandemic. Suffice to say that post-Covid, the hype has not subsided and the platform now boasts over one billion monthly active users globally.
For group vertical director Paul Mears, who heads up retail and ecommerce at TikTok, this rapid growth means the team has had to scale up the platform to meet rising demand.
“The most exciting thing is this seamless experience for both user and retailer,” he says. “Users can discover brands, look into them, watch a live video, watch a shoppable video, and then maybe check it out on the shop’s website or instore, which creates a closed loop experience.”
Authenticating brands
TikTok is currently under scrutiny in the US and is facing a potential ban there due to concerns about user data being shared with the Chinese government. The situation in the UK appears to be less fractious for the company as neither of the major political parties has raised any suggestion of a similar ban in the UK.
While the self-serve ads platform only launched in 2020, Mears says that the team has done “really well” to get some of the “top retailers” in the UK on board.
TikTok research shows that 98% of the top 50 UK retailers are active advertisers on the platform.
“Our focus has now shifted from not if retailers should be on the platform, but how,” he says. “We’ve been good at getting retailers from zero to one, and now they’re asking us, ‘What are the best in class doing? We’ve got from zero to one and we want to go from one to 10.”
He points to a wide range of retailers that have been getting the most out of TikTok – making creative videos designed to capture new followers as well as appeal to an already engaged audience.
Mears says Lidl is a prime example. The discounter often taps into current trends, showcases its popular bakery section and creates recipe videos using products sold in-store.
“Lidl has been great; we had a brand awareness study which showed 32% ad recall on a video about its bakery,” he says.
At the other end of the value spectrum are the luxury brands. “One that I particularly loved was Burberry showcasing the Burberry bag using Sylvanian family sketches that were really popular.
“I think it speaks to the philosophies of great TikTok content, which is being authentic, leaning into the platform, and what we refer to as low-fi. This doesn’t mean low, poor quality, but tapping into trends, audio and sounds that are becoming popular, and I love it when brands have fun.”
Entertainment is key
Being entertaining is a crucial element of successful TikTok content since the platform is first and foremost social media.
Marks & Spencer often taps into its softer brand assets like Percy Pig, while the team at the Hobbycraft store in Wimbledon has become so popular on TikTok over the past year, that they have appeared on Channel 4’s Big Fat Quiz of the Year.
Mears says that he emphasises to retailers that they tell the brand story and keep in mind that the TikTok audience “goes on it to be entertained”.
“As you move further down the funnel, it’s also very much a platform to drive profitable user acquisition, and acquire customers or re-acquire them.
“We’ve got all of those tools now, and my team in particular is very focused on performance-based marketing campaigns. This is the more algorithmic stuff where you can drive sales online.”
Similar to its competitors, including YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and Snapchat, TikTok now allows retailers to connect its first-party data to get more out of shoppers – those with a loyalty program can use this data to target customers.
Mears says this has made the platform “pretty robust” and able to support retailers across the app, online and in-store.
Expanding demographic reach
Though he doesn’t work directly on TikTok Shop, Mears says that its success lies in its “high new customer rate” and “low returns rate”, with a wide range of the customer base being from the Gen Z demographic.
“We are associated with Gen Z and have retailers such as Boohoo and Asos selling on the platform,” he says. “If you’re in the Gen Z space, then TikTok is a must. But we are taking campaigns across all groups and our fastest growing demographic segments are the older segments.”
Data from TikTok in April 2023 revealed 38.5% of TikTok’s global ad audience is 18 to 24 years old and just 5.5% are over 55; this suggests it’s going to be tricky to encourage retailers targeting the older demographic to get on board.
While Mears says he can’t share actual growth rates, he insists the platform is “growing at a clip” and that a lot of the bigger, established retailers are making the jump.
“When you sort of compound that growth over a year or two years and the behaviour pattern terms, it’s really already becoming a really meaningful opportunity.”
With TikTok still growing at pace and no fears of a ban in the UK, Mears concludes that those retailers not yet on the platform should be, whether to increase brand awareness, create marketing campaigns, or sell on TikTok Shop.
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