TikTok strikes deal with Amazon for social media shopping takeover

Amazon has teamed up with TikTok and Pinterest to allow you to buy products from the e-commerce company without leaving the social media apps.

Amazon ads on TikTok and Pinterest are pretty common, but if you want to buy something you see, you usually have to leave the app. That’s about to change with a new deal between Amazon, TikTok, and Pinterest. You can now link your TikTok and Pinterest profiles to your Amazon account and shop directly from the ads.

A blog post on TikTok’s website says you’ll start seeing Amazon product recommendations in your For You feed. If your accounts are linked, you’ll be able to check out with Amazon right there in the TikTok app without ever leaving it.

Unsplash: Olivier Bergeron

“Users who choose to link their accounts in the U.S. will see real-time pricing, Prime eligibility, delivery estimates, and product details on select Amazon product ads in TikTok as part of the experience. At any time, users can choose to unlink their Amazon account in TikTok’s app settings,” reads the post.

The Pinterest-Amazon partnership works similarly and builds on their existing relationship, where Pinterest has already been using Amazon to help fill extra ad space.

Amazon’s e-commerce business is likely to benefit from this new deal, and it will also give a boost to what is called “social shopping”. It will also contribute to TikTok’s vision to grow its U.S. e-commerce volume tenfold to $17.5 billion by 2024.

In September 2023, TikTok also rolled out TikTok Shop, its own e-commerce feature for shopping directly on the app. It lets merchants, brands, and creators show and sell products through in-feed videos, TikTok Lives, their Shop page, and the Shop tab. For users, the Shop tab is like a one-stop shop, similar to Amazon, where you can browse and buy stuff.