海角大神

Near the Twizzlers and Sour Patch Kids at It鈥橲ugar are random items聽鈥� fidget toys, fruit-shaped soft jelly candies 鈥撀爐hat earned a spot on the candy store鈥檚 shelves because they went viral on TikTok.

A flood of videos last year showed people biting into the fruit gummies鈥� plastic casing, squirting artificially-colored jelly from their mouths. Store staffers urged the company to stock up, and the gummies did so well that It鈥橲ugar decided to make TikTok part of its sales strategy. The chain now has signs with the app鈥檚 logo in stores, and goods from TikTok make up 5% to 10% of weekly sales.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 an insane number,鈥� said Chris Lindstedt, the assistant vice president of merchandising at It鈥橲ugar, which has about 100 locations.

TikTok, an app best known for dancing videos with 1 billion users worldwide, has also become a shopping phenomenon. National chains, hoping to get TikTok鈥檚 mostly young users into its stores, are setting up TikTok sections, reminiscent of 鈥淎s Seen On TV鈥� stores that sold products hawked on infomercials.

At Barnes & Noble, tables display signs with #BookTok, a book recommendation hashtag on TikTok that has pushed paperbacks up the bestseller list. Amazon has a section of its site it calls 鈥淚nternet Famous,鈥� with lists of products that anyone who has spent time on TikTok would recognize.

The hashtag #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has gotten more than 5 billion views on TikTok, and the app has made a grab-bag of products a surprise hit: leggings, purses, cleaners, even feta cheese. Videos of a baked feta pasta recipe sent the salty white cheese flying out of supermarket refrigerators earlier this year.

It鈥檚 hard to crack the code of what becomes the next TikTok sensation. How TikTok decides who gets to see what remains largely a mystery. Companies are often caught off guard and tend to swoop in after their product has taken off, showering creators with free stuff, hiring them to appear in commercials, or buying up ads on TikTok.

鈥淚t was a little bit of a head scratcher at first,鈥� said Jenny Campbell, the chief marketing officer of Kate Spade, remembering when searches for 鈥渉eart鈥� spiked on Kate Spade鈥檚 website earlier this year.

The culprit turned out to be a 60-second clip on TikTok posted by 22-year-old Nathalie Covarrubias. She recorded herself in a parked car gushing about a pink heart-shaped purse she鈥檇 just bought. Others copied her video, posting TikToks of themselves buying the bag or trying it on with different outfits. The $300 heart-shaped purse sold out.

鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 believe it because I wasn鈥檛 trying to advertise the bag,鈥� said Ms. Covarrubias, a makeup artist from Salinas, California, who wasn鈥檛 paid to post the video. 鈥淚 really was so excited and happy about the purse and how unique it was.鈥�

Kate Spade sent Ms. Covarrubias free items in exchange for posting another TikTok when the bag was back in stores. (That video was marked as an ad.) It turned what was supposed to be a limited Valentine鈥檚 Day purse into one sold year round in different colors and fabrics, such as faux fur.

TikTok is a powerful purchasing push for Gen Z because the creators seem authentic, as opposed to Instagram, where the goal is to post the most perfect looking selfie, said Hana Ben-Shabat, the founder of Gen Z Planet. Her advisory firm focuses on the generation born between the late 1990s and 2016, a cohort that practically lives on TikTok.

Users trust the recommendations, she said: 鈥淭his is a real person, telling me a real story.鈥�

Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms connected people with friends or random funny videos before marketers realized their selling potential. For TikTok, losing the veneer of authenticity as more ads and ways to shop flood the app could be a risk. If ads are 鈥渂latant or awkward, it鈥檚 more of a problem,鈥� said Colin Campbell, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego.

Influencers who get paid to shill for brands are getting better at pitching goods to their followers, telling them that even though they get paid, they鈥檙e recommending a product they actually like. 鈥淭hey feel like they are our friend, even though they aren鈥檛,鈥� he said.

Channah Myers, a 21-year-old barista from Goodyear, Arizona, bought a pair of $50 Aerie leggings after seeing several TikTok videos of women saying the cross-banding on the waist gave them a more hourglass-like figure. 鈥淚t鈥檚 funny, I shop religiously at Aerie and I had no idea they existed until I saw them on TikTok,鈥� Ms. Myers said.

After those Aerie leggings went viral on TikTok in 2020, the teen retailer expanded the same design to biker shorts, tennis skirts, and bikini bottoms, all of which can be found by searching 鈥淭ikTok鈥� on Aerie鈥檚 website. It wouldn鈥檛 say how many of the leggings sold.

TikTok, along with other tech companies like Snapchat, is gearing up to challenge Facebook as a social-shopping powerhouse.

Shopping on social media sites, known as social commerce, is a $37 billion market in the United States, according to eMarketer, mostly coming from Instagram and its parent company Facebook. By the end of 2025, that number is expected to more than double, to $80 billion.

Last month, TikTok began testing a way for brands to set up shop within the app and send users to checkout on their sites. But TikTok has hinted that more is coming. It may eventually look more like Douyin, TikTok鈥檚 sister app in China, where products can be bought and sold without leaving the app 鈥撀爅ust like you can on Facebook and Instagram.

鈥淥ver the past year, we鈥檝e witnessed a new kind of shopping experience come to life that鈥檚 been driven by the TikTok community,鈥� said TikTok General Manager Sandie Hawkins, who works with brands to get them to buy ads on the app and help them boost sales. 鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to continue listening to our community and building solutions that help them discover, engage, and purchase the products they love.鈥�

That includes The Pink Stuff, a British cleaning product that wasn鈥檛 available in the U.S. last year. That all changed when videos of people using it to scrub rusty pots and greasy countertops went viral on TikTok, pushing the brand to cross the Atlantic. It launched in the U.S. in January on Amazon, with 1.3 million tubs sold monthly, and is getting calls from major stores wanting to stock it, according to Sal Pesce, president and chief operating officer of the The Pink Stuff U.S.

鈥淚鈥檝e never seen anything like this,鈥� he said.

This story was reported by The Associated Press.